SirSmUgly

The Earthquake episode was nice, but the most shocking thing about it was how well Jerry Sags apparently aged. What the fuck?! EDIT: Also, "bubbly" is usually used a gendered descriptor for women's personalities, but I'd use that descriptor for Fred Ottman.

Ole's son sounded just like him. Have him read it.

Roop is extremely wide. He's like a human version of Strong Mad. https://pm-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Strong_Mad

I think they'll do a fall '24 reveal and March '25 release. The Switch was revealed in October '16 and released in March '17, for reference.

This episode just makes me wish we could channel Jim Barnett's spirit somehow and get him to do a whole special. The stories that Barnett could tell, whew.

I beat Rise of the Ronin a week or so ago, with 100% completion, and they gave me a refreshed map with scaled-up enemies in response. I played a little, but nah, I think I'm good for now. The combat was excellent, and I dug the weird "based on true history" story with Commodore Perry (who was dead IRL at the time the story takes place) and Robert Fortune and everyone else randomly showing up and befriending you. It's worth playing, especially if, like me, you absolutely loved Ghost of Tsushima. It was a good Tsushima mimic that prevented me from instead 100% completing Tsushima for a third time. Princess Peach: Showtime! is a bad game and Good Feel is a bad developer, IMO. Of their games, I actually loved Yoshi's Crafted World, which is about a hundred times better than Woolly World, but it was a fluke and Nintendo should stop giving them projects. They won't because the Peach game sold over a million already, but man. The hitboxes in that Peach game are so weird. One day, they'll give Peach a starring role in a game that is actually good, I just know it. One day. On a side note, is her full name Peach Toadstool? Or is she Princess Peach of the Toadstool House? I downloaded Dave the Diver on PS5, and I kind of enjoy it, but the game immediately starts piling stuff on you at the beginning of the game in a very gated, somewhat long tutorial, so I've been slow about going back to it. I go off and on with playing Vampire Survivors, but the free DLC got me back to trying to finish each level with every character. The Operation Guns DLC is out tomorrow, which I am absolutely purchasing. I'm thrilled that it has release date parity on Switch this time around, too. 2024 hasn't been bad for games, and I'm looking forward to the TTYD remake next month, but I sure hope Hades 2 gets out of early access and onto my Switch or PS5 by the end of this year. I think the Nintendo Direct and PS Showcase will give me at least one full-priced game apiece that I decide to purchase at launch later this year. I unlocked a couple of WWF WrestleMania 2000 characters that I hadn't unlocked on this cart that I've had for years, but I really need to go back to Perfect Dark soon and finally beat it. I've beaten GoldenEye across all levels a billion times as a teen, but I don't think I've ever beaten Perfect Dark. I really have to reconfigure my brain to play this thing with a single analog stick. Microsoft needs to hurry up and port Rare Replay everywhere so I can maybe just play it that way. There is just not enough time for writing and reading and work and travel and video games.

Come on Bayern, I need an all-Bundesliga CL final in which Dortmund finally gets one over on Bayern (and Harry Kane stays without a big title in his career, because it's funny to me). Though if you got awarded a quarter of a goal for every time you hit the post, PSG damn near would have pushed it to extra time in this Dortmund tie.

Welp, Game Pass is an official failure. Not in the sense that it doesn't have millions of subscribers, but in the sense that it isn't profitable enough for the shareholders. The point of Game Pass is that it needs content to keep up a userbase, so all these A- and AA-developed games are now viable again because they have a home in helping to maintain Game Pass subs and limit subscriber churn. Game Pass subs have flatlined, so all those studios need to sell copies to be viable, and they didn't and don't do that. Tango's only success sales-wise is the first Evil Within game, right? I fear for Double Fine. Psychonauts 2 sold just about two million copies. That's their most successful game (again, from a shareholder point of view). I know Tim Schafer didn't want to do Psychonauts 3 immediately and wanted to explore other ideas, but, uh, maybe he should re-think his plans. Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts about Phil Spencer's approach to pushing Game Pass as the big money generator for Xbox Games or Microsoft Games or whatever it's called now. Most of them are bad thoughts, particularly that: Nintendo and Sony were never going to accept Game Pass on their consoles, and at least one of them doing so was necessary to this gambit working out, but If you're going to try anyway, you have to go to total pressure on Nintendo and Sony as much as possible to get them to accept it. On the one hand needing Game Pass subs to go up to nine figures for your plan to work out, but on the other hand cutting deals with Nintendo to put Rare games on NSO or sending Cuphead and Ori over for purchase there totally undercuts your plan. You need to wall off everything to consumers on those consoles to either get them to go in on GamePass on their PC/buy an Xbox to get Game Pass or to get them to hassle Nintendo (which obviously works considering how quickly they ported Mother 3/EarthBound Endings to the United States) to include Game Pass as an option. The same goes for Sony, but at least they only started porting stuff over to PS5 after Tim Stuart and Satya Nadella clearly stepped in and mandated it...due to Game Pass being a failure. The same goes for PC. When you offer, say, Pentiment on Game Pass for PC, but also throw it up there on Steam so someone can just buy it outright and bypass Game Pass, then you've really undercut your supposed strategy. Phil Spencer might be worse at running Xbox than Don Mattrick was. At least Mattrick had a financial success, if not an artistic one, with Kinect (though I do like Dance Central and Double Fine's Sesame Street game for it is adorable). He's clearly in over his head and a seeming example of the Peter Principle. To my point: How does Microsoft release Redfall in its initial state? Well, Phil Spencer said that they internally graded it in the 90s. Yes, that's on a 100-point scale, not a 500- or 1000-point scale. The guy is completely incompetent.

Putski got to be on cable TV wrestling in the U.S. in the late '90s, so I don't feel bad for him. He did as well for himself as he could. I haven't gotten to the best-of-237 series with Karagias yet, so a) it had better be mostly run on Worldwide, SN, et al., or b) I am really, really, really going to hate my run through '99 Nitro and Thunder.

I have a deep dislike for Bobby Roode and Beer Money, and I'm not a big AMW fan either. The guy just isn't for me. Honestly, the only thing I remember remotely fondly about mid-to-late-aughts TNA is the women's division.

Maybe Putski the Younger came in dressed like a vampire pirate from a cancelled Anne Rice novel and Bischoff just couldn't resist. Or more likely Kevin Sullivan couldn't resist because vampire pirate Putski the Younger would have been perfect for the Dungeon of Doom even if it was dead by the time young Putski made it into the company.

Making my way through these, and Iceman King Parsons is a treasure. Someone just have this guy tell stories while sitting in a chair with this level of production value.

Thunder Interlude – show number forty-three – 10 December 1998 "The WCW Gang casually puts on a decent, wrestling-focused show that, while not great, upholds the best of what WCW Thunder can be” Welcome to the penultimate Thunder of 1998…Rey Misterio Jr. meets Juvi Guerrera for a Cruiserweight title shot…There’ll be a big six-man tag match between the warring nWo factions as well…And we open up with Bobby Duncum Jr. facing off with Chris Jericho yet again for some reason…I looked up Ralphus and found out he died a few years ago…Truly, Ralphus is an amazing part of this act…Jericho rips up a Thursday Night Ralphus sign…Another sign: KEVIN NASH IS SUPER SHREDDER FROM TMNT?...I see someone just found out about the eight-year-old IMDb website and did some exploring… Lee Marshall calls Jericho “the kid from Calgary”…HE’S FROM WINNIPEG, YOU IDIOT…There’s a very early commercial break…What we get of this match is fine…They’re trying very hard…Jericho’s out here taking vertical suplexes on the mats outside… Jericho throws tantrums and taunts and pretty much makes the whole thing reasonably enjoyable…Duncum makes a comeback and gets a long two count off a rebound bulldog…Jericho gets another rollup with his feet on the ropes for yet another win…Konnan sticks his mug into this deal and tells Mickey Jay what happened, and for some reason, Jay is like DUH OKAY EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T SEE IT WITH MY OWN EYES RESTART THE MATCH THEN I GUESS…What?...Then, Konnan clobbers Jericho when Jericho’s got a pinning combination, and Duncum rolls Jericho up for the win…So, Duncum finally gets his big win over Jericho and it’s because Konnan helped him, I suppose?...This was a waste of time and energy, but at least it wasn’t unpleasant to watch… I cannot wait until this Ric Flair/Eric Bischoff feud is over…It’s not Benoit/Sullivan or Rick Steiner/Scott Steiner, but it’s a bottom five feud in the Nitro era for my money… Glacier hooks it up with Saturn again…*grumble**mumble*useSaturnbetter*grumble**mumble*…Saturn is very good and has good matches every time out no matter what, and this is no exception…Glacier gets beaten up and begs off outside the ring…That gives Sonny Onoo a chance to sneak up and distract Saturn enough to give Glacier control…Glacier’s control segment features a lot of weak offense, per usual, and it goes on longer than it needs to, but it’s ultimately fine…The finishing run is decent, too, with Saturn trying a DVD, Glacier kicking away, and Saturn tripping Glacier and transferring into the Rings of Saturn… Onoo jumps in and draws a DQ win for Saturn by kicking him…Onoo realizes that he’s in no man’s land and tries to pay Saturn off…Saturn knocks the money away, hits Onoo with a DVD, and then transitions into the Rings of Saturn…The hapless Glacier tries to break things up, but misses an elbowdrop and gets suplexed… Charles Robinson continues to be the most competent of the WCW referees by simply not reversing the decision because Saturn attacked Onoo for attacking him…Funny enough, since I’ve been paying attention to reffing decisions, it’s almost like they’ve been putting Charles Robinson over as their new actually competent head ref, and come to think of it, I haven’t seen Nick Patrick since Scotty Steiner kayfabe injured him, so maybe that's what they're doing… Kaz Hayashi, who I don’t think got even one fucking win over Ernest Miller or even Sonny Onoo before he was transitioned out of that feud, faces Norman Smiley…Can both of these guys win this match somehow?...I’m a sicko who is looking forward to watching both these guys be more prominently placed in 2000, even if Norman Smiley is the ultimate joke character at that point…Wouldn’t you know it, this is a fun match…Smiley bullies Kaz with his power and size advantage…Smiley hits a stalling double-underhook suplex and covers, but he pulls Kaz up at two…Will he get punished for his profligacy?...He almost does after Kaz survives for long enough to make a comeback…Kaz gets a flash pinfall for two…But Norman survives and locks on the chickenwing, which looks much better this show…I believe he calls his version the Norman Conquest, which is an excellent finisher name… Thunder this week has dispensed with the talking and just let guys have six, eight, ten minute matches…That’s what I like… Video recap of Goldberg, Bam Bam, and Nash beefing last Nitro…You know what would rule?...A Bam Bam/Saturn feud…I hope we get one before Saturn splits for New York… Ernest Miller comes to the ring by himself…No wait, here comes a re-injured Sonny Onoo, trailing behind…Lee Marshall apparently has some off-screen kayfabe (I assume) beef with Dave Penzer because Onoo kicks at Penzer, and Marshall approves of it…That’s a throwaway nonsense angle that will never be booked that I actually am moderately interested in…Miller insults a few fans, then does his whole “karate champion” shtick…Onoo sticks his head in to ask why the Cat didn’t back him up earlier in the show…The Cat strictly adheres to the truth in pointing out that Onoo has two victories over Saturn, and therefore, Miller didn’t think that Onoo needed any help…There’s a gem of a story here, which is that the scheming Onoo has been out-schemed by his own client for once, but I have low expectations for WCW creative’s ability to tell it, and I don’t know that Miller or Onoo can take over and tell that story themselves effectively…They’re not exactly Chris Jericho or Raven in terms of creativity...Miller fires up Onoo to go find Saturn and kick his ass before telling the crowd that he hates them and leaving… Rey Misterio Jr. and Juvi Guerrera face off for a trip to Starrcade to face Billy Kidman…I love it when a match is almost certain to be good…Juvi works well as a heel, hitting some nice chops and ripping at Rey’s mask…Rey picks the pace up and immediately turns the tide going into a break…Back from break, Rey is fired up and lands a Bronco Buster on Juvi…Juvi turns the tide by landing a huge powerbomb while eating ten punches in the corner, and a few lWo members make themselves known at ringside at this point…Juvi gets a little comfortable and takes a whole lot of time on a dive that he eats boots on…The match goes back and forth as both men trade two counts… The intrigue is in how the lWo will interfere…Rey looks ascendant and scores a string of two counts…Juvi has learned from all those matches with Kidman and reverses a powerbomb with a bulldog…We get a slick counter-counter-counter that ends with Juvi flipping out of a suplex attempt and hitting a Juvi Driver…Juvi takes a whole lot of time going up for a 450..That’s a mistake, as it gives Rey time to crotch Juvi up top and land a top-rope rana…That’s when the lWo runs in to end the match…I guess that means Rey wins by DQ and gets the shot, then?...Kidman runs down, and in a neat variation on the typical babyface save, picks his spot, launches himself from the top rope and splashes three guys, rolls away, circles the ring, and pulls Rey out while everyone is diverted looking to see what he’ll do next…That’s a clever way to do a one-versus-a-bunch save… Video of the Giant insulting the crowd last Nitro…Oh, and also challenging DDP to a match…This big doofus does a bunch of Christmas puns and then calls DDP “the bang man”…So yeah, that’s about how that promo went, if I didn’t make it clear in the previous Nitro review…We also get video of Page yamming Giant with a chair shot last Nitro… We get a now-rare Lodi appearance on Thunder…He’d better hope Stevie Ray is in the building to help him out because his opponent is Booker T.…Mike Tenay confirms that even though the lWo jumped in and prevented Rey from winning in the previous match, somehow Rey doesn’t get the title shot…Hey, just on cue, Stevie Ray gets in the ring and interrupts the beating that Book is giving Lodi…Stevie is upset that Booker has reduced himself to wrestling “a sign boy?!?!”…heh heh…Lodi is insulted and loads his fist, but Stevie conks him with a slapjack before he can do anything with it...Stevie basically thinks Booker is a punk bitch and needs to join the nWo before Stevie has to get violent…After the, uh, months and months of “fun” that has been the Steiner Brothers feuding, I have zero interest in Harlem Heat feuding…And that’s before I consider that I actually know how the feud goes, and it goes completely shitty…It's probably bolted on for a place in the bottom five feuds in the Nitro era, which is a category (along with top five feuds) that I'll be adding to my big list... Kanyon finally figures out that the crowd answers his big question for them incorrectly because they’re trying to piss him off…He is even more pissed off at Raven, though…He wants to know WHAT ABOUT ME...WHAT ABOUT KANYON?...Chris Benoit is mad, just mad at everything, the guy is a being of pure and unbridled rage, but he’s surprisingly subdued on his way to the ring…Kanyon immediately outworks him to win an armdrag, then reverses an arm wringer and rolls Benoit up for two…Huh, usually Benoit’s such an aggressive little guy…Kanyon acquits himself quite well in the early going…Eventually he gets caught and German suplexed, then chopped after he breaks away to avoid rolling Germans… Benoit takes over, and Kanyon rolls outside after eating a big superplex…Benoit embarks on an almost casual beatdown of Kanyon…Kanyon hits a desperation side Russian, but can’t gather himself to make a quick cover and only gets two…There’s some back and forth in which Kanyon goes back to getting his ass kicked…This is a strange match in that Benoit is kind of matter-of-fact about the whole thing, but Kanyon is wrestling and selling like he’s in the midst of a war…Kanyon is trying his hardest to survive, and so Raven makes all of his effort pointless by walking out and clobbering Benoit in the head with a can of paint…That draws a DQ win for Benoit…Kanyon is angry at Raven, and turns around from arguing with him right into a Crippler Crossface from a chagrined Benoit…Hey Kanyon, maybe you should just, I don’t know, stop being friends with Raven?... The main event pits nWo Hollywood (Horace Hogan, Stevie Ray, and Vincent) against nWo Wolfpac (Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, and Konnan)…Well, that’s quite the lopsided matchup, to say the least…Wait, Nash isn’t out here…I thought this was a six-man tag…So did the desk…Honestly, even down Nash, this matchup is still lopsided as hell…Luger gets the mic and helps Konnan start his Catchphrase Roulette, a devastating series of catchphrases that demoralizes the opponent and sets them up for an eventual Tequila Sunrise… After the roulette, we hit a break, and was Kevin Nash like, I’m gonna book myself to be on vacation for the rest of this week fellas, see you at Nitro, or what?...I feel ripped off, and therefore will just skim over the obvious layout of the match (Luger fights hard, eats beatdown because of numbers, gets hot tag, Konnan fights hard, eats beatdown because of numbers, gets hot tag because both of these guys spend a lot of time getting beaten down and hot tagging in tag matches, so we need to do it for both of them in this nine-minute match) to get to the ending…Scott Hall runs out and punches Stevie Ray, who stumbles back into Lex Luger’s Torture Rack…I’m still confused about why Konnan and Luger are just chill about Kevin Nash not showing up, but whatever…It was a boring match, but the babyfaces won, so everyone went home happy…That counts for something, especially in WCW… This show was perfectly cromulent…WOOOO…

Maybe, but if Pusha T, The Story of Adidon, and the unfortunate blackface picture didn't shame Drake out of the game, not sure anything will.

Show #169 – 7 December 1998 “The one that packs the Astrodome in the run-up to Starrcade '98” Tony S. breathlessly tells us that the WCW Championship Committee had a closed-door meeting today, but Mike T. did a journalism and found out that Goldberg requested a title match against Bam Bam Bigelow. The committee said they were cool with that, but not if the title was on the line. Therefore, tonight, we burn through a Goldberg/Bam Bam match, which would be fine if Goldberg kills the guy off and moves on. Let’s hope that’s what happens. Then we get video in which Scott Steiner kicks the shit out of Wildcat Willie before the show even starts, and that made me laugh. I guess Scott Steiner has completed his babyface turn, huh? But seriously, even Wildcat Willie can get it. That’s the late ‘90s! The Nitro Girls dance. There’s a commercial break. We’re in the Astrodome tonight, a total cavern much like its compatriot the Alamodome just up the street. It’s pretty impressive that they filled so much of this dome. Maybe they should give the crowd some live wrestling! But no, there’s just more video of the Outsiders reunion from last week and the Hall/Scott Steiner match from Thunder. Scott Steiner (w/crooked ref) comes back to the ring. He grabs a mic and, uh, well, he crudely says that the women in the audience need his dick because the men are gay, they’re so GAYYYYYY that they can’t possibly be real men. That’s the late ‘90s! Forget what I said about Scotty making any type of a babyface turn. Steiner drones on about how awesome Hulk Hogan is, and I cannot wait for him to get away from the nWo and be an objectionable human being just by himself/with Midajah. Scotty promises to break Scott Hall’s leg later tonight. Then he leaves. So I guess instead of Hogan coming out here and taking up unnecessary mic time, we’re doing it with Scotty now? Is it too much to once again point out the whole “hot cruiserweight match to open” thing is a complete fable? We get the Nitro opening, and then maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a match? No, we’ll get a Nitro Party video. The formatting of these shows is complete ass most of the time. It’s ANOTHER Nitro Girls routine. Fuck off, WCW. OK, wait, Kimberly and Chae are fantastic in this one. I changed my mind, don’t fuck off, WCW. And you know what, I am remiss here because teenage me definitely found Tygress to be a cutie as well. But still, dole these dances out better. Maybe not two of them before the first match, you know. Hey, it’s a wrestling match! Though, shit, it involves Kendall Windham. OK, sure, this show hates me, it’s fine. I’ll still watch. Windham is in the ring to hopefully get squashed real quick by Diamond Dallas Page. Tony S. hypes a few upcoming shows, including the 1/4/99 Nitro in the Georgia Dome that is going to be, like, an inversion of the one on 7/6/98. Page and Windham have a good counter-counter-counter segment that Page wins, but then Page does some selling for Windham – not necessary - before coming back with punches and a discus clothesline. Right after that, Page drops Windham with a rebound Diamond Cutter for three. Or as Tony S. calls it, “a combination Diamond Cutter bulldog,” which it absolutely is not. We get a Tygress hype video. I dig Tygress, as I said a couple of paragraphs ago, but is this the best space for this video? Tygress talks about dancing for Left Eye Lopez productions, which doesn’t surprise me because she’s easily the best dancer in this group, and it’s not particularly close. This is a somewhat long video, though. I don’t want to hate because I actually like Tygress; she seems nice, and I am all for getting the Nitro Girls into “non-gawking-at-them” segments that show the personal side of the ladies. But again, the fucking formatting of this fucking show! Lots of video recap of Bam Bam Bigelow and Goldberg from last week. The Tygress interview from the previous video segment was infinitely more interesting than this shit. Well, it only took over 23 minutes for them to give me something to really look forward to, - in this case, Norman Smiley. Smiley faces Prince Iaukea in what should be a solid TV match. Smiley shakes off a back elbow to land a swinging body slam. He smacks some imaginary ass in celebration. There’s a very cool spot where Norman tries to duck down on a top rope Iaukea splash, but Iaukea adjusts in mid air and rolls the guy up on his dive for two. Smiley gets offense and then dances, but the third time he tries the offense-followed-by-dancing shit, Iaukea kicks him and makes a comeback. Iaukea hits a Samoan drop and a top rope splash for 2.5. Smiley is shortly after able to score a crappy-looking Chicken Wing Crossface for a win (and a victory dance). That was the only remotely crappy thing in this fun little two-minute jaunt. We are reminded, by Gene Okerlund, of the Eddy/Rey/Juvi nonsense as they fight over a shot at human glass of warm milk Billy Kidman and Kidman’s Cruiserweight Championship. After we see a recap to the point, Eddy comes down to talk Okerlund. Eddy cuts a mediocre promo in which he’s upset that Rey accepted a match against Juvi for a title shot tonight. He threatens Rey and makes an argument that the lWo should take a Marxist approach to pro wrestling, then calls Silver King down. Eddy and Silver King have a quick convo in Spanish. I only caught a bit, but they’re scheming. They’re plotting. So how in the fuck did Eddy convince the Matchmaking Committee to force Rey to wrestle Silver King in the same night he has a number one contendership match? (Editor's note: Even though they made it seem on Thunder that the Rey/Juvi match would be tonight, and they also made it seem that way in the previous segment, it didn't happen. WCW needs to do a better job of laying out what's going to happen and when.) These crappy feuds, man, they just burn me right out. It’s hard to care about anything that happens in them. However, from a wrestling standpoint, Rey and Silver King are going to have a good match. There’s a cool spot where Rey 619s through the ropes, so Silver King does it to show that he’s agile, too. Shortly after, Silver King takes a bump to the floor off an apron Frankensteiner. Silver King is one of the TV glue guys in this company where you can throw him in there with a smaller guy and he can work big or a bigger guy and he can work small. He can work face, he can work heel, he can do whatever you need him to do. Right now, what he’s doing is hitting a spinning crucifix toss for two. Should we just call that thing the Border Toss? I feel like that’s now sort of the catch-all name for that move. Rey can’t get the height on a dive to be properly caught, but they just move it along and Rey hits a dive outside that looks gorgeous. This whole match is a nice, pacey affair, really, with a sprinkling of great spots, the last one being a top-rope bulldog that scores Rey the win shortly after he lands that gorgeous dive I was talking about. Goldberg shows up to the arena with that goof Terry Taylor and some cops. Kevin Nash confronts the whole group and is mad that Goldberg is wrestling, I guess? It’s not a title match, big man. Goldberg assures Nash that he’s focused on giving Nash the ol’ Jackhammer (big pop), but Nash swears that he’ll prevent the Bam Bam match from happening tonight. Wrath comes out to start hour number two with a wrestling match. A probably short one, sure, but at least we’re getting a match. Wrath’s opponent is Renegade. Renegade has roughly the same amount of luck against Wrath tonight that he had against the Giant on the previous Thunder. Someone holds up a WRATH NEEDS A BATH sign that makes me laugh. No, no, dear fan, the stringy hair and baby oil is a style choice, not necessarily a sign that a guy doesn’t bathe. Wrath toys with the hapless Warrior knockoff for awhile before drilling a Meltdown to a sizable pop. Chavo Guerrero Jr. (w/Pepe) comes to the ring to tag up with Disco Inferno against Stevie Ray and Horace Hogan, but before that can happen, Disco comes out to the ramp and reminds us that he has a big announcement for Nitro that he hyped on Thunder. He calls out Konnan to help him make the announcement, translates Konnan’s mild use of slang when Konnan uses it to explain that he has no idea what the fuck Disco is talking about, and then drops the news that Kevin Nash allowed him to be in the Wolfpac. Then, he hugs Konnan, who cuts a face reminiscent of Vinnie Mac when Mankind hugs him. This match is actually a decent watch. The crowd is more focused on chanting DISCO SUCKS than on Horace’s opening clubbering or Chavo’s comeback. Disco and Stevie have a nice sequence where Disco tries to hit Stevie with an array of attacks before Stevie can catch up to him. Stevie eventually does, tosses Disco outside, and lets Horace go to work on Disco for a bit. Disco plays FIP before tagging Chavo, who actually scores a tornado DDT on Horace! Stevie jumps in and breaks up the pinfall attempt, so Chavo tags Disco back in, and the match breaks down. Disco and Horace are legal. Chavo bests Stevie in a tangle, but the ref – Billy Silverman, of course – focuses on getting Chavo out of the ring rather than looking Stevie’s way even once. Stevie and Horace complete a spike piledriver on Disco behind Silverman’s back that gets three when Silverman is done cementing his place as the worst kayfabe ref in the business and turns around to actually look at what’s happening in the ring. Kevin Nash walks out here looking all aggy, again for some reason that I don’t get. The desk doesn’t get it either; why not see if Bam Bam can soften up Goldberg for you? The crowd is into this guy until he says that Goldberg doesn’t run the show, which is when his reception gets decidedly more mixed. He promises to put his gear on and make himself known for any Goldberg/Bam Bam match tonight, specifically by making the match a triple threat. The crowd is more receptive to that idea, and I guess after a bit of thought, giving the audience a taste of Goldberg/Nash while still preserving their one-on-one match at Starrcade as the first time they meet in a singles match could work. The Nitro Girls dance. This is the first time they do it in hour two, and they do it after two matches. See? Spread these out a bit better, and it’s not a problem. Glacier renews his rivalry with Saturn, which honestly is one of my favorite dumb rivalries in this company. Saturn usually stinks on the mic, but the venom with which he came at Glacier over the Cryonic Kick was genuinely great. Right after the bell rings, Ernest Miller and Sonny Onoo (the latter w/neck brace) come to the top of the ramp. Miller pretends that he wants to fight Saturn, but fakes an injury. This man is ensconced in velvet, by the way. George Costanza would be impressed. Glacier jumps Saturn while Miller provides commentary on the match over the house mic. But, you know, it’s Glacier, and he kayfabe (and shoot) sorta sucks, so Saturn comes back, hits an array of moves on the guy, and drops a SWEET Savage Elbow that IMO should get three except that Savage is in the company and is the master of that move, so maybe Saturn should only get a 2.9 on that basis. Onoo tries to distract the ref so that Miller can get involved, but Miller misses a kick on Glacier and Scott Dickinson is a WCW ref who makes a good call for onceby disqualifying Glacier. No, wait, he disqualifies Saturn for fighting off two guys, one of whom tried to attack him even though he wasn’t part of the match. Scott Steiner’s I HATE REFEREES, THEY’RE INCOMPETENT AND STUPID becomes a truer statement by the show! Maybe I should give him more kayfabe credit for beating up enough refs that they refuse to officiate his matches. Saturn probably feels that way, too, as he DVDs Dickinson for making a completely nonsensical ruling. Hell, even the desk is confused at how Dickinson turned around, saw two guys attacking Saturn in a singles match, and DQ’d Saturn. Konnan and Kevin Nash shill an ugly new t-shirt, but they do it in an entertaining way, so I don’t mind. The Wolfpac is so over that it boggles my mind that Bisch and Company are going to merge it with nWo Hollywood in under a month. What the fuck?! Lex Luger walks to the ring to face Emery Hale, who is here a) because he’s a huge dude and b) the crowd loves it when Luger racks these huge dudes. The desk spends some time poking holes in the latest main event storyline (no, it doesn’t make sense that Kevin Nash would want to prevent this Goldberg/Bam Bam match, unless Nash stated that he wanted to make sure that he was the first guy to beat Goldberg, which would give him some clear motivation for intervening). The Luger match goes how you’d expect, right down to Luger hefting the big man up for the Torture Rack and the dub. Tony S. shills a special edition of the WCW Nitro video game’s PC port, down to the holographic box. I wonder how much CIB copies go for on the internet. I did a quick search, but that search only showed a bunch of auctions where people just have a copy in the regular jewel case up for CIB. The Monday Night Jericho t-shirt spot with Jericho sitting in darkness and talking about how Jerichoholism has overtaken him plays for the first time in weeks. Love that spot. We get a Kevin Nash/Goldberg hype video. Then we get Chris Jericho (w/Ralphus, completely absurd hairstyle) making an appearance. There are at least a couple of tubby dudes in the crowd wearing homemade JPS t-shirts. I bet they could have sold a few of those suckers if they ever tried. Jericho shits on Bobby Duncum Jr. specifically and cowboys in general, but the Houston crowd sort of agrees with him. It’s only when he says “y’all” that he gets more boos than cheers, as is right when Canadian who was born in New York and never lived in Texas for at least a decade says "y'all." Duncum Jr. comes to the ring to face Jericho after this spot of mic work. A JERICHO SUCKS chant actually starts. A small one, but hey, he’s made himself the heel here. Good for him. Duncum is bland as fuck, but Jericho pinballs for him, so this match is watchable. It’s also, just, look, there’s nothing less interesting to me than a “southern cowboy” gimmick, which is remarkable considering that I prefer wrestling from territories in the southern U.S. over any other type of wrestling. I remember when everyone was like YEAH JAMES STORM RULES and I was like This guy is super-bland, who gives a shit about him. Eventually, Jericho counters a powerbomb by rolling through, schoolboying Duncum, and putting his feet on the ropes for three. Again, watchable stuff. We get a Goldberg hype video next. It reminds me how much better WWF is at these sorts of things. We’ve made it to hour number three, which means it’s time for angle recaps and video of stuff that happened earlier in the night. Happily, they keep it short this time around and Scott Putski comes out, still dressed like a complete fucking dork. I am hopeful that the Giant will kill this guy off quickly. In fact, Putski ducks the Giant’s lariat, celebrates, and turns right back around into a goozle and a chokeslam in twenty seconds or so, heh heh. The Giant gets a mic and threatens DDP after the match. He insults the crowd and cuts another bad heel promo. Woof. Anyway, the Giant lays down a challenge to DDP for Starrcade, and considering that the big man is sixty days-ish out on the end of his WCW contract, I should be able to guess the winner of that bout. Konnan threatens the nWo ref in the back. Hmm… Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko (seconded by Arn Anderson) tag up against Raven and Kanyon. Aw hell, let’s be real, Raven’s not going to do a damned thing in this match. Hell, he’s not even coming out of gorilla. Kanyon tells Raven that Kanyon is the only guy who will still even talk to Raven. Saturn, Page, Jake Roberts, Roddy Piper – they all ditched him. Raven is probably even more depressed to come to the realization that his only friend is Kanyon, come to think of it. Kanyon gives up and walks out with a mic, complaining about his recent humiliations in the ring and deciding that he won’t wrestle another functional handicap match tonight. He calls Arn Anderson half a man and challenges one of the other Horsemen in the ring to a match on Thunder. Arn circles around to the ramp and pulls out a tire iron, which sends Kanyon scurrying backward into the ring, where he gets beaten up a bit before escaping. It's yet another video to recap one of these crappy feuds WCW is currently booking, this time between Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff. After that, we cut back to the ring where the Horsemen have stuck around; Okerlund joins them and introduces Ric Flair. Flair does his thing where he yells and gets very red. I’m over it. Whatever happened to suave Ric Flair who would only yell for emphasis every once in awhile? Maybe I’m just imagining it like people imagine cruiserweight matches opening Nitro. Flair calls Bisch a “jackoff” and names some people from the territory days (Paul Boesch gets a mention, being in Houston). You basically get it, it’s typical Flair in a late ‘90s promo. Konnan is very over here in Houston, to no surprise. He’s very over everywhere, actually. Konnan is defending his newly-won TV title against Booker T., Houston native. This is a weird match to book, as the crowd likes both guys, and therefore aren’t really super excited about either of them hitting offense. They just want to yell ORALE and raise the roof, man, that’s what they want. The match goes back and forth at a slower pace than the typical Booker match, but Booker’s looking in control with an axe kick when Stevie Ray walks out to observe the match. Shortly after that, Booker Spinaroonies up and hits a Houston Side Kick, then goes up for a missile dropkick. Stevie takes this opportunity to jump in the ring and hit Konnan with a slapjack. Konnan wins by DQ; Booker almost gets mad enough to hit Stevie until he realizes that this is what Stevie wants. I’ve said it before, but Stevie’s crab-in-a-barrel mentality is too real. Scott Hall and Scott Steiner meet up in the next match. Wait, hold on, the nWo ref isn’t here, and Scotty Steiner thinks Scott Hall is to blame: WHERE’S HE AT?! I KNOW YOU HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT, YOU PIECE OF SHIT, screams Scotty. But no, it was KONNAN with the TAPE in the DRESSING ROOM. Hall works over Steiner while the taped-up nWo ref wriggles out into the aisle and the desk fake laughs like a bunch of idiots. Mickey Jay walks out, shoves the nWo ref over, and runs down to officiate the match, but the Hollywood B-Teamers run down soon enough and jump Hall. Luger and Konnan run in for the save, but the B-Teamers hang on long enough for the Giant to run out and swing the momentium…and that’s when DDP runs in and swings momentum by swinging a chair for a second save of the babyfaces. This was a well-layered bunch of run-ins and was as interesting to me as it was to the hyped crowd. Eleven minutes left on the clock, yet we have time to squeeze in one more Nitro Girls routine, which signals to me that the main event will barely get started, if at all. I’m even more convinced that we’re not getting much of that main event because after that routine, and after the desk yammers on for a bit, Gene Okerlund calls Bret Hart out for an in-ring interview. Bret bigs himself up, craps on DDP for ducking him to face the Giant instead, and hits the ol’ catchphrase. He also bigs up Smokey, may that cat rest in peace and enjoy his eternity in Kitty Heaven. Ooh, the Hitman even bigs up Wrestling With Shadows, which is a pretty great documentary. Michael Buffer’s out here to announce a main event to nowhere. Bam Bam runs to the ring, then Nash runs to the ring, then Goldberg runs to the ring (and high-fives Roger Clemens on the way). Nash beats down Bigelow; Goldberg beats down Nash; Bigelow tries to beat down Goldberg, but needs help from Nash. The bell rings and security runs in as the crowd realizes that they got screwed out of a promised main event. Well, Nash warned you that you were going to get screwed out of this match! There’s not anything new to say here. Feuds suck, most promos suck, in-ring action is generally quite fun. 3 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

For a second I was like, Damn, Drake pissed Rikishi off, too?!

Perfect Dark is good, but playing a single-analog shooter is like doing organic chemistry to me at this point. I bought Hybrid Heaven specifically because I heard about all the cool wrestling moves that you can do in the turn-based battles. I'll have to dig into it later. I have about sixteen or eighteen more games on the list, so I'm only aiming for about forty carts, but we'll see if I change my mind down the road.

Thunder Interlude – show number forty-two – 3 December 1998 "The WCW Gang ultimately illustrates why Thunder was a good show for fun televised wrestling in 1998 (after a rocky start)” Forty-two Thunder shows in, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of what it’s had to offer…1998 in general is a weird year for WCW because they’ve had patches of excellence in their shows, but inconsistently and almost never in the main event…Thunder is always talked about like it was bad pretty much from the off, but that hasn’t been true in my re-watch because it gives a bit more focus to the non-main event stuff…I’m glad that I decided to stop and watch it, even knowing that I added a bunch of bad shows in 1999 and 2000 to my backlog… Tony S. runs down title changes and Hogan’s 45-ish day “retirement”…He’s off television, let’s at least stop talking about him for awhile before y’all stick the title right back on him…Oh wonderful, instead, we get a Hulk Hogan video retrospective that they used to play on Nitro back in late 1995…They just add some stuff with his heel turn to it…All this praise for Thunder being a solid watch throughout ’98, and you do this to me?... There’s a commercial break, and then we get video of Scott Steiner challenging Scott Hall and all the stuff that happened in relation to it on the previous Nitro…It’s my fault…I never should have said that Thunder was any good in 1998…It’s some sort of karma being dished out for saying something nice about Thunder, except 25 years into the future from when this show aired… Maybe a match next?...It’s Scott Steiner (w/nWo ref), and I drew a huge blank on this “new leader” stuff…I’m not sure I remember much about this period of late ‘98/early ’99 WCW except for the taser and the Fingerpoke of Doom, actually…Oh, and Commissioner Flair going mad with power…Steiner prattles on about how much more he fucks than Elvis did or whatever…This guy keeps going on and on…And on…Fourteen minutes in, and not one fucking wrestling move that hasn’t been on a retrospective video or recap…I actually am cool with fourteen minutes of talking, but you gotta make them good, like WWF more reliably was able to accomplish…Steiner calls out Scott Hall again for tonight… We get our first live wrestling move at 17:54 in the show (not counting breaks) when Ciclope and Eddy Guerrero go at it…Eddy throws a clothesline after Ciclope rebuffs his offer of friendship…They work at a quick pace (of course)…Eddy is in danger for maybe thirty seconds, but he hits a brainbuster and goes up for a Frog Splash in short order…Then, he thinks about it, jumps down, and tells Billy Silverman that he’s disinterested in continuing the match…The rest of the lWo comes to the ring and they pitch Ciclope on membership…I’m pretty proud of my ability to follow Psicosis’s Spanish, though anyone with little or no Spanish could still follow because of Eddy and Psicosis’s pantomiming of what Psicosis is saying…Anyway, Ciclope joins the lWo and no one gives a fuck… Bret/DDP/Giant recap…The Giant comes to the ring to kill off Renegade…Renegade comes out to Marvelous Marc Mero’s WWF theme, which I get a small kick out of…Renegade has more of a chance of beating the Giant than Mero ever had of beating Sable…Renegade hits some of the worst throat thrusts I’ve ever seen in my life in between getting tossed around to start and super Chokeslammed to finish… The Giant talks…It’s bad…Page runs in and clobbers the Giant with a chair and then talks…It’s also bad…Why is this dumbfuck Page so insistent on trying to jam the word “scum” into every insult he lobs?...He’s got the interview skills of a seventh-grader who is a C- student in his writing classes trying to cut an e-fed promo… Mike Enos faces Chavo Guerrero Jr. in an interesting matchup…Chavo, as he comes down the aisle: “This is Pepe’s house!”…Chavo’s reward for getting himself over with this gimmick is to be sidelined from a storyline perspective and losing about as much as he wins…He should have gotten Kidman’s Cruiserweight title run…Enos tosses Chavo around early, and it rules…Enos holds Chavo up for a press slam, at a couple points with only one hand while he tries to move Charles Robinson out of the way, and Chavo slips out and gets a schoolboy for two…Chavo tries a dive and Enos almost doesn’t catch him, but grabs a leg, lectures Chavo, and then tosses Chavo before yelling GOLDBERG’S NOTHIN’, KID at a taunting fan…See, this is why I praised Thunder to start…This show has had these types of cool TV matchups quite often in its first year of existence… Chavo uses his aerial skills and dexterity to block a power move with a dropkick…He goes for a top-rope Frankensteiner, but Enos catches Chavo and lands a second-rope powerbomb (!!!)…The crowd pops for it…Wow, good wrestling getting a pop, who would have thought…Enos takes Chavo up and hits a second rope powerslam for two, but pulls Chavo up at one…Chavo’s not that much smaller than Enos, but he bounces around like he is before barely getting two after turning on another powerslam attempt…Chavo is pressed to the outside and then sneaks up behind Enos as Enos grabs Pepe and prepares to hit Chavo with him…Chavo gets only two there, but he gets three shortly after when he flips out of a powerbomb attempt and rolls Enos up…Doug Dellinger and the Keystone Kops have to run down after the match and back Enos off when Enos frustratedly chokes Chavo after losing…Chavo's "small brave fighter" spot would have been better used for a less imposing Cruiserweight (hey, like Billy Kidman), but this match was an extremely fun TV shot… Rey Misterio Jr., also a less-imposing Cruiserweight (but on too high a level to get tossed around by Mike Enos), comes to the ring and faces off with Villano V…Hey, look what happens when you have good workers have matches with one another…The show picks right up…Rey flies to start and wins a big dive…Villano V presses his power and size advantage…he catches a Rey springboard crossbody and plants him, then goes to work with some nice power moves…Villano V drops a sweet guillotine legdrop to the back of Rey’s head in there…Huh, Villano V goes for, like, a Figure Four cravat?...Maybe an inverse surfboard?...Cool move…Rey tries to flip his way out of trouble, but Villano V catches a rana attempt in the corner and slams Rey right onto his face…It’s when Villano V goes up top that he runs into trouble, as he misses a cannonball attempt from the second rope…Rey makes his comeback, stomps a mudhole, and lands a Bronco Buster…Rey drills a face crusher and a springboard rana in short order for the three count…This was another quality television match… Tony S. interviews Rey on the ramp post-match…I’m fine with more lWo angle crap after this past couple of matches…They were more than good enough to mollify me…Tony S. asks about Eddy taking Rey’s Cruiserweight Championship shot a show or three ago…Eddy and the lWo come down and Eddy says that he decides who gets the title shots, and Eddy says Juvi gets the next one…Tony S. says that the WCW Championship Committee has made their own decision, and that Rey will face Juvi for number one contendership…Eddy freaks out at Tony S. while Tony backs away yelling, “That’s not me, man, that’s the committee!”…That last part got a laugh out of me… We get some more Nitro recap…The contract signing is on this video…Bam Bam being way overpushed is also on this video… I hear Chris Adams’s music and expect to see the master of the superkick and of getting blackout drunk on flights, but no, it’s just Chip Minton…Minton’s here to job to Wrath…Minton is, uh, extra excitable…He goes for a dropkick when I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to stand there and prep for a back bump off a clothesline…Minton is a former (World Championships bronze medal) bobsledder…Which is ironic because it’s all downhill for him in this match…HAHAHAHAHAHAHA whooooo…Anyway, Wrath wins with the Meltdown… There’s a Flair/Bischoff video recap…If they insist upon addressing ongoing feuds on Thunder, they should come up with a better blend of live angle advancement and recaps instead of just slamming the show with a bunch of fucking recaps… Raven and Kanyon come to the ring…At first, Raven wouldn’t leave gorilla position…Then, Raven made it to the ring, but refused to wrestle…Let’s see if Kanyon can get Raven to actually do something this week…This “Raven is depressed” angle is going on way too long without any development, by the way…Kanyon says he’s going to help Raven’s mental state by getting this crowd full of Memphisites…Memphisians?...to answer his question…Kanyon pulls an Undertaker and catches the crowd off-guard, in this case by asking, “Who’s NOT betta than Kanyon?”…He points out that he got them to answer it right because they’re dumb Tennesseans and then does his best Andy Kaufman impression…Y’ALLRE FROM MEMPHIS WHAR THAY PLOW THA FIELDS AND THAY FARM THA FARMS…Hilarious, Kaufman really was one of the best wrestling heels ever… Oh yeah, there’s supposed to be a match…So, it’s Raven and Kanyon against Mongo and Benoit, at least on the contract…In actuality, it’s a handicap match…But it’s one with lots of good action…The crowds really love to chant that RAVEN SUCKS…Raven’s not even bothering any of you, damn…This is mostly Benoit versus Kanyon, so it’s aesthetically pleasing…Kanyon hangs on for as long as possible against Benoit, but Raven won’t tag Kanyon, and Mongo will tag Benoit…Kanyon survives a Mongo flurry and goes back to his corner to remonstrate with Raven…Just forcefully tag him, stupid…That’s what Randy Savage would do, he’d punch the guy square in the face to tag him…This is such an interesting match as Kanyon fights valiantly, but Benoit and Mongo are simply too good and break the guy down through attrition… Benoit looks like he’s going to finish Kanyon off with a flying headbutt, but Kanyon barely rolls away and tries to get a hot tag…He doesn’t get a hot tag, so he drills Benoit with a sitout facebuster and then FINALLY forcefully tags Raven…At this point, Raven just hops off the apron, walks out, and gets ten-counted out…Benoit, bleeding from his mouth, jumps Kanyon and puts him in the Crippler Crossface, but the match is over…My only quibble with this match is that Kanyon came off like a heroic babyface…He survived a little too much offense from the Horsemen…At the same time, it did make Raven walking out and wasting all the pain and tears that Kanyon went through more effective…Anyway, what a fascinating (and entertaining) match that I very much enjoyed…It’s a bolted-on addition to the charming uniquities list… There’s a short recap of Konnan winning the Television title…Konnan’s rap video plays next… Disco Inferno comes to the ring and grabs a mic…He says he’s got a big announcement planned for the next Nitro…Then, he complains about Konnan’s rap video…He pitches Konnan on doing a video together, but a better one with disco music in it…I’m pro-disco…It’s good dance music, what’s wrong with that?...Donna Summer is pretty great, too…Disco is getting a shot at his future podcast co-host’s TV title tonight…Konnan responds by hitting the Catchphrase Roulette…Then Konnan offers Disco a chance to have the experience of sucking Konnan’s dick while having his ass eaten at the same time…I’m not kidding, that’s the implication of what he says!...Sorry for the unfortunate mental image, by the way...The match that follows is worked as if underwater by Konnan…Disco does get some control and score a couple of two counts in there…It’s not a bad bit of control, but it ends with Disco missing a second-rope elbowdrop…Konnan lands a rolling clothesline, then pops off a 187 for two…Disco actually makes one more comeback and lands two swinging neckbreakers in a row, but the follow-up pinfall only gets two…Disco tries to land a Chartbuster, but Konnan shoves Disco out of it, hits a sitout facebuster, and gets a win with the Tequila Sunrise…That match was pretty solid, and the wrestling on this show overall has been worthy of the praise that I gave this show to begin this review… Scott Steiner (w/nWo ref once again) re-enters the ring for a main event bout against Scott Hall…Hall saunters to the ring, but once the bell rings, he opens up with a series of aggressive moves that end with a lariat…Hall is working this match like he’s trying to kill Steiner off ASAP, so the nWo ref dives for Hall’s legs and allows Steiner to club him, then counts a very quick 2.5 or maybe 2.7 on the resultant cover…Steiner beats down Hall at ringside, then rolls him back in and puts him in the Tree of Woe position…Steiner tries to break Hall’s ankle by yanking it over the top rope while I contemplate what sort of contracts the WCW Matchmaking Committee is agreeing to that allow Steiner to provide his own crooked referee for his matches…Like, what the fuck, WCW management?...Steiner attempts to get a couple of three counts and yells at his own ref for not counting quick enough to avoid Hall’s kickouts…Steiner wraps on a sleeper, but Hall reverses it, and Steiner reverses that with a back suplex…Hall makes a comeback and scores a couple of pinfall attempts, but the ref’s count is veeeeery…slooowwwww…Hall tries a Razor’s Edge, but the ref pulls Steiner down…Hall hits the ref with the Razor’s Edge instead, then crotch chops as the crowd pops…This crowd is very into Scott Hall…Steiner jumps Hall and locks on the Steiner Recliner…There’s no ref, so we just end the show on Steiner locking it on and the crowd booing… That first fifteen minutes of the show were touch and go, but after that, we got a lot of what has made Thunder such a surprisingly fun show throughout 1998…This isn’t quite the final Thunder of the year, but I think it’s close enough that I can give Thunder credit for being a generally good show in at least the first calendar year of its existence…WOOOOOO…

Show #168 – 30 November 1998 “The one where the Wolfpac has a kayfabe excellent night” Tony S. and Larry Z. are without an ill Mike T. in hour number one. Tony S. promises us a big contract signing between Goldberg and Kevin Nash as well as a DDP/Bret Hart match for the U.S. title. They also hype this stupid-ass Hogan/Leno/POTUS thing. There is nothing to hype about that, fellas. We await a limo arrival. There’s a commercial break. Two limos arrive. The Giant and some B-Teamers step out of one. Scott Steiner and some B-Teamers step out of the other one. We’re getting deep into the late ‘90s here, when the major U.S. wrestling companies put on a lot of crap. Tony S. talks about watching some guys get out of a limo and walk through the arena by describing it as “cutting-edge stuff.” Nope. Maybe he meant that something else about this opening involving the nWo is cutting edge, though by December of 1998, what exactly is cutting edge about the nWo? It’s been around for two-and-a-half years. They reach the ring and Scott Steiner demands a moment of silence for Hulk Hogan, who is retiring to run for POTUS or whatever stupid-ass shit Hogan is saying about his pre-Fingerpoke of Doom vacation. The Giant performs the sign of the cross during this moment of silence, though, which is genuinely funny. Steiner bigs up Hogan, who I guess has made Steiner nWo Hollywood’s leader in absentia. He then promises chaos for nWo Hollywood’s enemies, starting with Scott Hall later in the evening. Scotty challenges Scott Hall and a partner of Hall’s choosing to a match against himself and Horace Hogan. There’s more nWo presence on the show, this time with Wolfpac member Konnan coming to the ring to wrestle. Konnan hits the crowd with his Catchphrase Roulette. Then, out walks Chris Jericho (w/Ralphus) to defend the Television title. Konnan is an actual reasonable contender for that belt. Jericho sends Ralphus to the back before he gets in the ring. Konnan dominates at half-speed to start. A Konnan mudhole stomping in the corner get a nice pop. Jericho gets some control by hitting a Hot Shot and a corner springboard dropkick, then follows up with a dive to the floor and a whip into the steps. Jericho’s moving quickly and rolls Konnan back in the ring immediately to capitalize. Um, he capitalizes with a wimpy pin that gets two. Well, never mind. Jericho goes up, but he takes about five years to do it, blows kisses to his fans up there, in fact, and eats a boot when he dives. Konnan makes his comeback and gets 2.5 off a fisherman’s suplex. That close call wakes Jericho up, and Jericho scores a Lionsault for two after clubbing Konnan down. Jericho tries an Irish whip, gets reversed, and is caught and flapjacked when he tries to leap over. You can tell Jericho’s in trouble because he’s screaming HELP MEEEEE, but he tries to help himself by rolling through a Konnan move and putting on the Walls of Jericho. It’s too near the ropes, though, so Konnan reaches the ropes. Jericho thinks he’s won, so he grabs his belt, and when the ref informs him that he hasn’t, he just swings said belt at Konnan. Konnan, unfortunately for Jericho, ducks, then hits a back kick and a sitout facebuster that plonks Jericho’s head right onto the title belt that Jericho dropped when he was kicked. Konnan gets an easy three count and the Television title; Kevin Nash and Lex Luger come out to celebrate with Konnan, who has been the Wolfpac’s personal television champion as the one guy in the stable who wrestles every week for months now. Yeah, I lost track of the TV title between when Booker won it back from Finlay and when Scott Hall somehow got it and dumped it in a trash can. If you had told me that Jericho lost the TV title to Konnan at some point, I would have believed you, but I also would have had no memory of it whatsoever. Konnan’s music video plays next to celebrate his big victory. I am genuinely impressed that Konnan got a vato gimmick so over with WCW’s fanbase. He’s reliable at getting big pops for his catchphrases, taunts, and signature moves. He just gets how to work a crowd and even though I think he’s a mediocre athlete, he’s pretty great at everything else about pro wrestling! Gene Okerlund interviews Ric Flair in the ring. Flair is serious tonight. He’s less about the WOOing and the ladies and the wooing of ladies and more about the history of pro wrestling. He names a bunch of wrestlers he’s worked to illustrate said history and calls Bischoff an “asshole,” which gets a pop. Flair baits Bischoff into a future match by pointing out that Bisch called him old, but then if Flair is old, why is Bischoff ducking him then? It’s a pretty good kayfabe conceit to get Bisch to agree to a match, and the promo is solid as you’d expect from Flair. There’s some video of the post-opener celebration, and they’re pushing Konnan’s win as a harbinger for Kevin Nash maybe winning some gold soon (uh huh) and also the Wolfpac being in ascendancy over Hollywood (well, it looks like that, but the black-and-white won’t die already, please just die already). Scott Hall comes to the ring, sans-music. He hits his taunts and catchphrases to applause. He might be somewhat sauced, maybe? He says that he’ll fight Scotty Steiner and Horace one-on-one since he has no friends, but he means one-on-two. Tony S. has to correct this on commentary. Nash hits the ramp, waves at Hall, and watches movies. I know that last part because says that he’ll be Hall’s huckleberry. I think in a non-Wild West setting, “being someone’s huckleberry” means that you’re willing to be someone’s tag partner. That's how you learned through context clues. Kanyon and Raven come to the ring. Raven slumps in the corner and takes a little nap. The Armstrong boys come to the ring as their opponents, but Raven is depressed, fellas, he lost his Flock and now he sleeps thirteen hours a day and doesn’t shower. Get him a therapist and some meds. Raven requests a mic and starts to talk about how his mother didn’t love him, but Kanyon takes the mic away and mocks Raven’s mental health issues, which makes the Armstrongs the babyfaces after they jump Kanyon and kick the shit out of him, at least in my book! Kanyon eventually gets control with a sitout Northern Lights Suplex and then faces off with Raven. Raven…just leaves. Tony S. and Larry Z., being commentary heels (in my book), also make fun of Raven’s mental health concerns. Kanyon hits a Flatliner on one Armstrong, but is rolled up by the other Armstrong for three. It was an angle, really, but there probably should be some sort of meaningful progression, much less payoff, as soon as possible. Bret Hart cuts an interview with Gene Okerlund in the ring. The Hitman limps down and then, funny enough, claims to be hurt again, but is actually hurt this time for once. He says that Page paid Malenko to rupture his groin, which of course the crowd doesn’t believe. Of course, they don’t understand because they don’t even have groins, which is, in fact, a pretty classic line on Bret's part. Anyway, he bows out of the match against Page that was supposed to happen tonight. DDP comes to the ring to retort and cuts a vile promo. Man, Page sucks as a babyface. He’s a very good babyface worker in the ring, but he’s such a bad promo that it overwhelms his in-ring work for me. If he’s not heeling, I’m at the point in my watch with this guy that I was when I watched a lot of this stuff IRL in 1998 – I sort of detest him. Page taunts the Hitman with variations of the Hitman’s catchphrases, and I judge the crowd for being into it. Hart begs off at first, but then says he’ll do it if it’s a no-DQ match. Page agrees, and we get a safe wandering brawl with lots of weapon shots later TONIGHT! Eddy Guerrero saunters to the ring for a Cruiserweight title shot. Let’s hope he takes this thing off Billy Kidman, who can be a very good dance partner for guys who are better than him, but who has zero redeeming qualities as a pro wrestler otherwise. Kidman fires off immediately with a monkey flip, a headscissors, and a dropkick. Kidman tries to follow up by hitting a crossbody to Eddy on the floor, but Eddy sidesteps it and tosses Kidman into the stairs. Then, he wedges Kidman’s knee between the steps and the ringpost and dropkicks the steps. Ouch, good spot! Eddy follows with a tope con hilo to the knee back in the ring and proceeds to ground Kidman. After a commercial break, Eddy continues his work on Kidman’s arm in addition to the damage he accumulated on Kidman’s leg. Even injured, Kidman is able to cut Eddy off when Eddy takes his time going up top, but Eddy grabs the ropes and Kidman spills himself on a rana attempt. However, Eddy makes his second big mistake – he tries to powerbomb Kidman. Kidman gets a two count off the resultant facebuster. Kidman makes his comeback after this move and gets two on a sitout slam. He tries it again, but Eddy hits a headscissors to block it, then lands a tornado DDT and goes for a Frog Splash that clearly was not going to be attempted considering how far across the ring Kidman was. Kidman cuts off Eddy as expected and gets a superplex for two. Kidman and Eddy fight over a move in the corner, and Eddy’s legs accidentally clip the ref. Charles Robinson is down at ringside, which is when Juvi and Rey run down. Kidman takes out Juvi and Rey takes out Eddy; Rey revives Charles Robinson just in time for Robinson to count three on a Kidman SSP. Rey and Kidman make tracks as the lWo tries to chase them down. Good match, obviously, and the interference spots were pulled off very well and didn’t detract from the match. Bam Bam Bigelow is chilling in the crowd. Twiztor likes Bam Bam’s presentation, and I definitely get that viewpoint. personally, I just cannot buy Bam Bam in this role because I don’t buy Bam Bam as a threat at this point in his career. I do think that basically getting rolled for his last two years of his second WWF stint as a part of the Million Dollar Corporation and then as an ineffectual babyface was too much for me. Like, I dig the ECW run because of a couple of spots (putting Taz through the ring, launching Spike Dudley into the crowd), but I saw a bit of that run not long ago, and Bammer just didn’t do it for me outside of the signature spots. Here in WCW, there’s no Paul E. magic to make me feel like this guy is at Goldberg’s level or deserves Goldberg’s notice. Also, I do enjoy Goldberg and mostly enjoyed his mega push, so maybe we need a scale with my name at one end and Twiztor’s on the other, and you can place your name closer to whichever one of us more closely matches your thoughts on Goldberg, Bam Bam, and this Goldberg/Bam Bam feud. Eric Bischoff is here tonight and will unfortunately be here for another ten months. Woof. Bisch walks to the ring with Barry Windham. Bischoff drones on about his recent vacation in assfuck Wyoming so that he can basically transition into cutting a shitty campaign-style promo. Bisch is genuinely awful at this. I watched a WWF promo from around this time in London where Vince McMahon Jr. cut a promo laced with political references that was good and funny and clever. Bisch isn’t even one-tenth of the promo man Vinnie is. Finally, Bisch calls Dean Malenko down to the ring. Malenko comes to the top of the ramp with all the Horsemen besides Flair, but he enters the ring on his own. Bisch long-windedly makes a Malenko/Windham match and says that if Malenko wins, Flair can get a match against Bischoff. Malenko agrees, and that’s when Bisch reveals the special ref in the match, Dusty Rhodes. Oh yeah, Big Dust is still a heel for some fucking reason that I don’t get. I hope they turn him babyface again tonight, especially because we need to eventually get tp Dusty and Dustin making Ric Flair kiss Dusty’s ass like a week before the company closes down. Dusty says the word “shenanigans” in his little promo, and I loved that. Otherwise, this sucked and Bischoff is a terrible television personality. Wrath comes to the ring to steamroll Bobby Blaze. It takes him about thirty seconds to hit a Meltdown for three. Bam Bam yells somewhat inaudibly into the camera from his seat in the crowd. Ernest Miller (w/Sonny Onoo) still isn’t a James Brown mimic, so that’s a bummer. Miller does lambaste a fan in a manner that genuinely makes me laugh, specifically when he tells the guy “sit your ass down and enjoy the show.” So, Miller challenges everyone in the crowd, and this would be the perfect time for Bam Bam to jump up, kick the shit out of this guy, and look like he might actually be a killer, but no, Saturn comes to the ring instead. Miller actually does a pretty good job here with a very good line, saying that he was taught in his training to protect the weak, and Saturn must be weak since Onoo beat him, so he’ll protect Saturn by leaving rather than beating him up. Saturn declares that Miller is actually just scared of him, so Miller says that he’ll rip Saturn’s proportionally tiny head off of his body (heh!) if Saturn can beat Sonny Onoo first. Miller hypes Onoo up, and Onoo thinks he can do it. The little guy runs at Saturn…and he eats a Falcon Arrow. Saturn covers and should get three, but Miller yanks the ref out of the ring and Glacier jumps in and lands a Cryonic Kick on Saturn. Wow, they’re still beefing, huh? The ref gets back in the ring, but Saturn kicks out at 2.9, blocks an Onoo chain shot, and wins the match with a DVD. OK, that was some dumb bullshit. And it gets even dumber when the ref sees the chain that has fallen onto Saturn and DQs the small-headed pugilist after the fact for using said chain. You didn’t see it, it didn’t happen, you below-par WCW ref. No wonder Scott Steiner is beating you doofuses up. As he once said, you’re all incompetent and stupid. Anyway, this was surprisingly delightful as a segment, I have to say. Goldberg gets out of a limo and cops escort him into the building. As we did with nWo Hollywood earlier in the night, we watch Goldberg walk from the limo all the way through backstage and to the ring, I guess to take up time? I don’t get this choice. Below-average worker and racist scumbag Terry Taylor is in the ring with Gene Okerlund, and I guess this is the contract signing. Bam Bam complains about Goldberg from his ringside seat, and I’m already completely sick of Bammer and his use on these shows. Kevin Nash (w/Lex Luger and Konnan) comes to the ring to sign the contract. Okerlund notes that the contract bars Goldberg from defending the gold until Starrcade to preserve the matchup. Here comes Bam Bam over the railing as soon as he hears that. Like thirty people converge on Bam Bam and drag him out of there. That’s it, that’s the signing. Booker T./Mike Enos seems like it could be fun! The crowd is a bit burned out as far as the match, but they enjoy Booker’s taunts. It’s a fun little TV jaunt, though. Enos hits a diving lariat from the apron and Booker hits the mat to fire up the crowd while in a chinlock, but is that not a tap out considering the drama around that one Booker and Benoit match from earlier in the year? Anyway, Booker makes a comeback, gets cut off by a fist for a second, but gets back on track with an axe kick, a back suplex, and a Spinaroonie. Book lands a Houston Side Kick and a big spinebuster for three shortly after that. We get footage of Bam Bam standing in some grass outside the arena, yelling and looking like a jackass. Ew, it’s Crush (w/Vincent). Ew, he’s facing Lex Luger. We’ve seen this on PPV already earlier this year, so there’s no need to fill time with this matchup. And far, far worse, Tony S. brings up Mark Curtis being so sick that they paid tribute to him recently. That is obviously much shittier than just having to watch Luger/Crush again, so I guess it at least put things in perspective for this complaining viewer. As an aside, I looked up when the Mark Curtis benefit show was, and it’s in 1999, a couple of months before Curtis passes away. I assume that show does not survive in any video form, including fancam? It’s actually a pretty intriguing show for a few reasons. This Luger/Crush match is not intriguing, but it’s honestly cromulent for a random TV match. I’ll forget that it happened tomorrow. Luger shines early, gets beaten up in the middle, and in a small twist, lands a forearm that knocks Crush into the ref. Vincent takes the chance to run in, and Crush hits Luger with a chair, then spike piledrives Luger onto the chair. Luger kicks out at 2.9 and further Vincent-and-chair related shenanigans backfire on Crush, who gets Torture Rack’d for the submission loss. Dusty Rhodes walks to the ring to referee the Dean Malenko/Barry Windham match. Malenko is selling a leg injury from last week’s match against the Hitman, but this one is actually totally worked. Malenko easily outwrestles Windham at pace, so Windham bails and hides behind Dusty, who gives Windham a chance to jab Malenko in the eye. Windham running from that runt Malenko is hilarious. Anyway, Windham takes over and his legendary timing is off because he misses a shoulder charge by like a mile and should have been able to stop himself. Windham maintains control anyway and attacks Malenko’s knee while Rhodes pulls up his pants and just chills out not calling for rope breaks. Then, in an out-of-nowhere spot, Windham punches the guy in the ropes and Dusty suddenly DQs Windham for punching Malenko in the ropes for more than five seconds. Dusty laughs, that sly dog, and I realize that this sudden babyface turn does make logical sense; Dusty only really turned nWo because of his connection with Scott Hall, and they dumped Hall out of the nWo, so Dusty has no obligation to them anymore. Bisch runs out and fires Dusty, but when Windham comes after Dusty, the rest of the Horsemen run into the aisle and give Windham the beats, followed by Flair celebrating his upcoming opportunity to beat up Eric Bischoff. Well, at least Dusty is a babyface again. Scott Steiner and Horace Hogan (w/nWo ref) come to the ring. Oh yeah, are WCW refs still refusing to referee Scotty Steiner bouts? Is that still a thing? Scott Hall walks into the aisle and waits for the Wolfpac theme to hit. The Outsiders are back together, but Nash gives Hall the ol’ People’s Eyebrow as a sign that he wonders about Hall’s trustworthiness. There’s some early wrestling, but the important part is that Hall hits Horace with a chokeslam, does the Giant Frankenstein taunt, and then crotch chops Scotty, who immediately tags in and yells FUCK YOU at Hall. That sequence was entertaining, even as Tony S. yammered on about the WCW Executive Committee sanctioning a Bischoff/Flair match at Starrcade as it happened. Hall takes a beating from Scotty, but blocks a top rope suplex and then lands a nice second-rope bulldog for a two that the nWo ref barely seems interested in counting. Scotty takes back over with a low blow. Scotty dumps Hall outside so that Horace can choke the guy with a weight belt, but Nash walks over and makes the save. Hall continues to get beaten down as the crowd tries to will a hot tag into existence. They finally get one that the nWo ref tries to wave off, but Nash tosses the little guy out of the way and cleans house. Horace tries to stop Nash’s rampage, but Hall catches him from behind and hits an avalanche Razor’s Edge. The nWo ref doesn’t want to count the pinfall, so Nash Jackknifes him and an actual ref, Billy Silverman in fact, decides to do his fucking job and run down to count the three. That might be the first decent (kayfabe) reffing job Silverman has done in WCW. Nash rolls out without waiting to celebrate with his erstwhile buddy. I liked the heck out of this. Who knew that babyfaces overcoming heel chicanery could feel so good? There’s more footage of Bammer walking around in sweatpants on some grass. Did I mention that this guy looks like a jackass? After a break, we get a shot of Goldberg running outside and diving on Bam Bam as they have a brawl on the side of a hill and try not to tumble backward. It is cool that they fight into the parking lot and bash each other into cars a bit, but Bam Bam is such a comedown, man, I don’t buy it and I never will. Bam Bam jobbed to Lawrence Taylor, Bob Holly, and Major Payne, and I just don’t see him on the level of Goldberg. In fairness, the crowd standing around outside is into the proceedings! Bret Hart shuffles to the ring for his main event U.S. Championship shot against Diamond Dallas Page. I don’t know why they insisted on Bret working this match. It’s a chokes-and-punches affair. Page takes about fifty years to try and lock on a corner Figure Four, but the Giant runs down and breaks it up, then beats the crap out of Page. Giant drills Page with a chokeslam and then picks him up, perches him on the top rope, and hits a super chokeslam on top of that. Bret hugs his good buddy Giant and then locks on the most cursory of Sharpshooters for the win. Was it necessary to put your second-biggest title on a guy with a legitimately injured groin? What a stupid match. Anyway, that’s how the show ends, but who cares, they’ve booked this title into the ground after Goldberg gave it up (and arguably, as soon as Goldberg got the title considering the caliber of most of his opponents). Even with the nWo Hollywood, especially Eric Bischoff, continuing to be a drag on these shows, this show was pretty dang good, actually. There was lots of fun wrestling and even some solid heeling from a couple of guys on the show. It’s just too bad that every feud in this company fucking stinks. 3 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

I love the MVC, but I guess the consensus is that they're an acquired taste, maybe? I love watching big dudes toss opponents around and then smother them. You've probably seen their Watts-era WCW run, but if you haven't, you should also watch their feud with the Steiners, which I am a huge fan of.

He had a good TV match with Sting marred by nWo interference, I think the Hogan match on 6/6/98 was good, the match against Saturn at Spring Stampede '98 was good IMO, and he had a handful of squashes that were great television. I don't think I was watching WWE at the time, but I saw a couple months ago this match he had against Brock Lesnar from I can't remember when that is one of the best squash matches I've ever seen: Two huge dudes with legit KO power, and one of them KO's the other in about a minute. LOVED IT. Everyone does these boring thirty-minute epics with lots of 2.9s because that's how a lot of these workers and bookers think you have a good match. Yeah, that's one way, but another way is to have two hosses with impactful wrestling moves hit each other with said moves for only a minute or two because they should be finishing their opponent off pretty quickly just from the impact of their best stuff.

It's really too bad that this article didn't hit before WrestleMania: https://www.thewrap.com/dwayne-johnson-red-one-late-budget-problems/ One question: Why a Voss water bottle? Wider neck? Does it hold more piss? Trust me, this question makes sense in context.

I am both impressed and concerned that you tracked Goldberg's record outside of house shows.

Show #167 – 23 November 1998 “The one where Bret Hart and Dean Malenko are a drawback and not a benefit, strangely enough” Tony S. welcomes us to the only live weekly wrestling show on television while the Nitro Girls dance, and I think, oh yeah, of course RAW is still taping every other show. The “butts in seats” incident happens because Mankind’s title win was taped. RAW is getting roughly five million people to watch their show each week at this point in late 1998; they really should have cut out the “every other show is taped” schedule at this point. Tony S. has some hot news and updates for us: Kevin Nash won the WW3 Battle Royal. Hulk Hogan will act like a jackass on Leno’s Tonight Show later this week. Just another week in 1998! Mike Enos opens the show against Lex Luger. There’s not much to say about this match. If you know anything about Lex Luger TV matches, you know what this was like. The Wolfpac is very over, though, so the crowd is pretty hot for it. Enos also drills a sweet piledriver for two. You know, there have been better openers, but there have been worse. It was perfectly acceptable wrestling. Luger actually went up top twice, so that’s kinda new, but otherwise, you can probably guess who wins and with what move. (It’s Luger with the Torture Rack just in case you couldn’t guess.) Goldberg trades weak barbs with Konnan and Nash in the parking lot. Goldberg sounds like a doofus. The Nitro opening occurs here, followed by Gene Okerlund standing on the ramp, shilling the company and preparing to talk to new WCW Cruiserweight Champion Billy Kidman. Just when I thought that Juvi and Kidman were out of ideas in the ring, they put on a hell of a match at WW3. Kidman is bad at mic work and is sort of putting me to sleep, but he calls Rey Misterio Jr. out and offers Misterio a title shot tonight. They shake hands and split, but Eddy Guerrero comes out here – DAMMIT – and I guess he has a contract to keep Rey in the lWo or something? How and why would there be contracts to sign with individual stables? The nWo is presented as a different organization, not just another stable. What the fuck? This is dumb, and it gets dumber when Eddy gives Rey a double XL lWo shirt and makes him wear it. Bisch and Sully have driven me to the point that I’m disappointed when Eddy Guerrero shows up on my television. That is, to put it mildly, a fireable offense. Norman Smiley should get a push. See, there are two Norman Smiley signs in the front row! Smiley grabs one which declares him to be a favorite of the fan holding it. Smiley’s not winning tonight, but I have reasonably high expectations for his six-minute TV match tonight because he’s facing Chris Benoit. Smiley wins a go behind, snap mares Benoit, and kicks him in the spine, which pisses Benoit off; Benoit gets up and slaps the guy. Smiley wins a knuckle lock, tosses Benoit, and hits a BIG WIGGLE. Benoit is not appreciative of the lascivious dancing, to say the least. He beats down Smiley and snot rockets him. These fellas are slapping each other like they actually don’t like one another. Smiley’s heeling tonight, which means that he’s doing a lot of dancing and posing, which means that he’s giving a guy like Benoit way too much time to recover. After one dance, Smiley gets his Irish whip reversed, and Benoit catches him after he slams into the corner and hits the triple Germans, followed by a flying headbutt and a Crippler Crossface in short order. Honestly, this wasn’t long enough for me. I wanted more. There’s some Nitro Party stuff and stills of WW3, and I only really snap back when the AHWOOOO hits and Nash, Luger, and Konnan come to the ring. Everyone plays Catchphrase Roulette. Well, not Luger. Luger doesn’t have any over catchphrases. Nash talks about the perseverance of the Wolfpac, which is short-handed and missing Savage and Sting, and acknowledges a weak Goldberg chant. You know, Nash might be more over than Goldberg tonight, though they’re in Michigan, which explains that. Nash plans to be the one in how-many-ever-wins-WCW-says-Goldberg-has-now and one. Nash leaves the ring and walks backstage, where Gene Okerlund catches up to him and asks about his relationship with Scott Hall. Nash basically doesn’t trust Hall, but as he explains this lack of trust, Goldberg walks by, tosses another weak barb, and sounds like a man who is going to get rolled on the mic by Kevin Nash over the next month. Tokyo Magnum should have a theme he can groove to, not “generic East Asian track #34,” dammit. Magnum faces Kanyon in what should be at least a fun little TV match. Or uh, he would be facing Kanyon if Kanyon came out here when his music played. We go backstage where Raven is pouting and doesn’t wanna go out there, Kanyon can’t make him! Kanyon is not supportive of Raven’s inability to get past his mommy issues. Yeah, Raven’s trauma dumping all over you Kanyon, tell him to get a therapist or get fucked. Kanyon is so troubled by Raven’s behavior and refusal to join him in the ring that he can’t even get excited to ask everyone WHO BETTA THAN HIM? He’s so troubled, in fact, that Magnum gets the jump on him and gets two on a schoolboy. Kanyon hits a second-rope side Russian (!) to reverse a series of Magnum corner punches and peppers Magnum with strikes after Magnum kicks out of a pinfall attempt. However, Magnum keeps sneaking flash pinfall attempts in there; Kanyon is clearly rattled and realizes that he needs to get a win and get out of dodge before he’s on the wrong end of an upset, so he blocks a hip toss attempt and drills a Flatliner ASAP. Yeah, that was a fun little thing. There’s a Nitro Girls dance. Larry Z. asks Tony S., “Can you do that with your thing?” in response to something that Tygress does (and which gets a sizable pop). I’ll leave what Tygress did to get that pop and to get Larry Z. to ask the question up to mystery and your imagination, you fucking sicko. It’s a Glacier appearance. There was a time that I thought that I was interested in Glacier appearances, but actually what I was really interested in was James Vandenberg, Mortis, and Wrath appearances. Glacier’s going to lay down for Bobby Duncum Jr., probably, in this mid-off between two guys who I don’t give a fuck about. Well, Glacier trying to inspire Norman Smiley, I’ll give a fuck about, but that's not for a couple of years. They do some decent-enough work, have a little ringside brawl per the style of the time, and Duncum is never really in much danger. Glacier is always a step behind. Ew, there’s a terrible punch and soft DDT from Duncum that gets two, but should have gotten zero because it was complete ass. Duncum wins shortly after with a front Russian leg sweep. Gene Okerlund introduces the Giant to the ring for an interview. It’s nice that they remembered how much Kevin Nash and the Giant hate each other in storyline; Okerlund asks the Giant about Nash spearheading the gang attempt that dumped him from the ring in the previous night’s battle royale. The Giant cuts an, uh, suboptimal promo in which he challenges Goldberg for the World title (again) so that he can take it into Starrcade to fight Nash. The Giant says “damn” and “balls” and has to stop himself from saying “chickenshit.” It’s edgy in a very WCW way, I suppose. The Giant should have jobbed to Goldberg months ago, but I guess since he’s shoot vocal about heading to New York at this point in his run, they’re finally going to do what they should have done months ago. Saturn faces Silver King next. Saturn grabs a mic before the match and threatens/challenges Ernest Miller. Saturn will get something good out of Miller, who needs reps with good wrestlers badly. Then, as Saturn promised Silver King before he challenged Miller, Saturn beats up Silver King. I think Silver King is a sneaky good JttS in this era of WCW, actually. This is a pretty entertaining semi-competitive squash. Saturn’s quite over as a mid-card ass kicker. Before Saturn can finish off Silver King, Ernest Miller and Sonny Onoo come onto the ramp to taunt Saturn. Miller: “I’m big, bad, and I’m beautiful!” Guy in crowd: AND YOU SUCK. Miller and Onoo kept talking, did what some might charitably call a comedy routine, and left, but that didn’t keep Saturn from going back to beating up Silver King and landing a DVD for the win. Miller refused the challenge, by the way. There are some more PPV stills to hype up that Goldberg/Giant match for later tonight. Rey Misterio Jr. comes to the ring next for his Cruiserweight Championship match against Billy Kidman. Rey hits a Bronco Buster, which seems like a heel move, actually, but then again, it’s the ‘90s and anything goes for babyface behavior. Rey and Kidman spill outside on a Misterio Frankensteiner; they have a flippy cruiserweight version of a ringside brawl. Well, that’s different! Seriously, it’s an interesting variation on the typical punch/kick/whip into the stairs stuff that you see in almost every match from this time period (especially in the WWF). Back in the ring, Kidman struggles to keep control. Rey hits a sick dropkick on Kidman’s knee and follows up with a second-rope Rocker Dropper for two. Rey whips Kidman to the corner, but ends up getting crossbodied for two. Again, Kidman’s control doesn’t last long as he whiffs on a crossbody, lands at ringside, and gets seated senton splashed in the bargain. Misterio tries to follow up with a springboard rana back in the ring to end it, but Kidman lands a desperation counter dropkick that gets two. Kidman goes to a seated abdominal stretch, which makes a lot of sense in kayfabe because Rey was easily outmaneuvering him when they were standing or in the air. And again, when Kidman lets off and gets to standing, he gets booted on a corner charge, though he rips off a counter powerslam on a charging Rey for two. After another counter-filled change in the corner, Rey tries a moonsault that Kidman catches, but Rey bails out before he can get slammed or piledriver and lands, um, some kind of facebuster from an odd position. Mike T. and Larry Z. are impressed. This match continues to go back and forth; Rey lands a facebuster after being popped up into the air for a sitout slam. Rey tries to go to the air but gets caught in the corner; he works out of the jam and lands a sunset flip powerbomb for another two count. You know what, this match is laid out really well. Everything feels logical. Kidman lands his signature springboard bulldog and goes up for an SSP, but Misterio cuts him off and lands a superplex. Rey tries anther springboard rana, but Kidman catches him and completes the sitout slam this time. Eddy Guerrero creeps down to the ring, but Kidman dropkicks him off the apron and splashes him. The ref is drawn by that and doesn’t notice the lWo’s newest member, Juventud Guerrera, sneaking into the ring from the other side and sending a message to Rey by landing a Juvi Driver. Kidman is finished with Eddy and turns his attention back to Rey, sees him still down in perfect position for an SSP, and lands it for three. Very good match even with the end-of-match gaga. Gene Okerlund is standing in the ring with waste of space Eric Bischoff. Bisch is here to continue this shitty Bisch/Flair feud. Bisch promises to end their feud with a confrontation tonight; then, he reiterates that he’s the boss and that the beatdown that Scott Hall caught from nWo Hollywood at last night’s PPV is proof of that. Ric Flair enters the ring to respond. Flair can be entertaining on the mic in his sleep, so obviously this is perfectly acceptable stuff even with that black hole of entertainment Bischoff across from him. Bisch is like ACKNOWLEDGE ME (as the leader of this company) and Flair burns him by saying that he’ll acknowledge that even a man as great as Ted Turner makes a mistake every once in a while. It was a really good burn. Bischoff says that he refuses to add Barry Windham to the payroll since he runs the place, and then Windham comes out here. Is this the most obvious set-up ever? We all know what’s going to happen. There’s no need for Okerlund to lampshade it by saying something about the Horsemen running together forever. Anyway, Bisch slaps Flair; Flair punches the crap out of Bischoff. Windham, in a shocker, jumps Flair and beats the crap out of him. A few crowd members chant BULLSHIT while Bicsh and Windham commence with a beatdown. Yeah, I know, you just want to see the good guys win for once. Wait, fellas, at least here come the Horsemen for the save, and—oops, no, they’re jumped by a bunch of B-Teamers and beaten up. This got heat, and I think some of it was good, but some of it seems tired, like it’s of the “can our guys just get a win already?” variety. The desk is shocked that the bad guys won again for a bit, but soon enough, Konnan comes to the ring to hit the ol’ catchphrase roulette. His opponent tonight is Booker T. A black fan in the crowd wearing a homemade Jericho Personal Security shirt holds up a REUNITE HARLEM HEAT sign. WCW and disappointing black fans by breaking up their favorite black tag teams – name a more iconic duo. But seriously, though, this Booker babyface push is going well, though I’m not sure anyone wants to boo Konnan tonight. Booker overpowers Konnan early and wins a shoulderblock. Konnan hits a rolling clothesline at half speed, so Booker slows it down with a knuckle lock and then lands a back elbow for two. This match is not going to be good because Booker works better with explosive athletes and not very slow wrestlers with awkward offense. We’re not getting a charming uniquity out of this one. Konnan lands a back kick and a sitout facebuster, but he doesn’t even try for a Tequila Sunrise and Booker goes back on offense, landing an axe kick and Spinaroonie-ing up to see his brother Stevie Ray on the apron. Stevie hits Konnan with the slapjack, drawing a DQ win for Konnan. Stevie and Booker have a short repartee in which Booker wants Stevie to go about his business and leave him alone, but as we all know, Stevie is not going to do that. After that beatdown of the Horsemen, Bischoff declared that while the Horsemen were kicked out of the building, Malenko was an exception because Malenko would be facing the Hitman later in the show. Bret comes down to the ring to talk to Gene Okerlund right now. The Hitman claims that he was screwed by a cheap DDP victory at WW3, and also he hates the fans. Even doing this sort of boilerplate heel stuff while half-engaged, this guy is pretty entertaining. Is this the match where Malenko injures Bret trying to lift him onto the buckles? Bret promises to come after Page and the United States title again at some point before leaving. It's hour number three, and that means that it’s time for Kevin Nash to end Wrath’s recent undefeated streak. Yeah, Wrath lost to Glacier and Ernest Miller, so I don’t think Nash beating him is all that amazing or all that much of a momentum killer. Plus, as much as I like Wrath, he is absolutely not Goldberg. Maybe it’s just me. I do think that Nash got onto the booking committee and went mad with power, though. I enjoy Nash a lot as a performer, but there’s zero sense in having him book a show that he is also performing on. It seems like anyone should be able to guess that Nash would immediately book himself on top. In truth, Nash is way over, and it's fine that he’s on top, but still, you don’t want to give Nash himself the leeway to book himself on top. It’s improper. Wrath makes a rude gesture toward Nash. Nash crotch chops in response. The crowd cheers. Wrath wins a bunch of strikes to start and is able to reverse Nash’s momentum with a snap kick and a dropkick that sends Nash to the floor. Nash reconsiders his strategy, then re-enters the ring. Nash’s reconsidered strategy: Throw a bunch of knees and maybe a soupbone or two. Wrath squirms out of the back of a slam attempt and hits a back suplex, then a diving clothesline from the top for a 2.7, maybe a 2.8. As close to a 2.9 as you can get when your timing is nearly perfect. Wrath gets two more off a series of elbowdrops. He hits some punches in the corner and tries to whip Nash, but he follows Nash into the corner and eats a boot, then a side slam. Wrath runs the ropes and again turns the tide with a diving shoulderblock, but he just can’t out strike Nash, who wins a counter lariat and a big boot before pulling down the straps and landing a Jackknife for three. Gonna be honest, that is not the worst way to end Wrath’s little winning streak. I think there was chatter about how selfish this was at the time, but that was a competitive match and Nash sells that Wrath was a challenge after he wins. It was solid. Maybe I’m too forgiving because I like Nash, though. Gene Okerlund is in the ring yet again, this time to interview Chris Jericho. Jericho comes out here looking like he’s starring in Eraserhead. That hairdo is positively Lynchian. The black dude wearing the homemade JPS shirt has replaced his sign requesting a Harlem Heat reunion with one declaring that he's wearing a WARDROBE BY RALFUS [sic]. Okerlund mumbles on the hot mic, “I can’t say anything” in reference to Jericho’s hair, and it makes me laugh. Dear reader, I cannot express enough to you how over Jericho is. The number of Jericho (and Ralphus) signs is wild. Jericho as a cowardly heel World Champion with Ralphus and an actual huge bodyguard to watch his back would have been amazing. That’s a huge missed opportunity on WCW’s part. Jericho chastises the fans for not cheering enough for him lately, can’t properly pronounce Bobby Duncum Jr.’s last name, calls Stu Hart a “crazy old wizard,” and says that even though he hates cowboys, he could easily “rustle up some vittles.” This is the rare situation in which everyone tried to do comedy, including the fans, and it worked. Duncan Duncum comes out here with a hogtied Ralphus and dumps him in the aisle; Jericho freaks out. There’s a commercial break. When we come back, Jericho is still trying to untie Ralphus in the aisle, but Scott Hall comes out to the nWo Hollywood music, so Jericho decides that discretion is the better part of valor and leaves Ralphus in the aisle. Unfortunately, the commentary desk also tries to be funny, what with all the fake laughter and bad jokes, and they fail. Oh well, getting that much genuine funny from WCW in the first place was good enough. Hall requests that the truck cut the theme music and then gets in the ring and declares that he is giving his final survey. He knows that everyone wants to see the nWo. As for nWo Hollywood, he says that it's bogus that he's been kicked out of the nWo since he started it “by himself," and that he has no problem running by himself. As for the nWo Wolfpac, he says that he doesn’t have anything to prove to Kevin Nash; he only has something to prove to himself. He declares that the next thing he will prove to himself is that he kicks ass at the pro grapz by beating Alex Wright. Wright comes out, runs down the stupid Americans in the crowd (bad move because this gets the mutants to hit a U-S-A chant while he’s in control), and gets in the ring. Also, he dances, but you probably guessed that. Even though Hall’s break with nWo Hollywood is total nonsense that got ginned up out of nowhere, people want to cheer him and the idea of Hall as a tweener bully is enticing. Of course, Hall is going to be in no condition to perform so much that he gets sent home pretty soon, so that never would have come to fruition, but the idea is certainly something that I wouldn’t mind seeing. Hall and Wright have a solid TV match. Hall survives a decent patch of Wright control, punches his way out of trouble, and lands a fallaway slam and a Razor’s Edge for the win. Dean Malenko’s selling that Horace the Younger leg attack from earlier tonight as he comes to the ring to face Bret Hart. Tony S. tells Bobby H. “stifle yourself.” Then he calls Mike T. a meathead. No, wait, only the first of those things happened. Bret goes right at the injured leg and works the knee. If you like a choke-and-kick offense, the Hitman’s got you covered. Malenko fights back with forearms and punches. They do a shitty cradle spot, but at least the commentators can say that Malenko’s lack of leg strength explains the shitty cradle he tried. The Hitman rolls outside and catches his breath. There’s a break. We come back to the Hitman begging off and Malenko hitting punches in the corner. Malenko lands a short clothesline and a vertical suplex, but sells that it put too much pressure on his knee to get Bret up and over. The delayed cover gets two. Malenko hits another cradle right into the ropes. This match sorta stinks. Bret’s really been on autopilot. I mean, the good thing about it is that even on autopilot, his shit is crisp. The bad thing about it is that he’s only as entertaining as his opponent, and sometimes even his opponent isn’t enough to get things all fired up. Page tried, but they didn’t have a notable match of their two recent bouts. We get a standing ten count after the Hitman misses an elbow. Malenko’s up first and gets a sleeper. Bret eventually counters with a back suplex, but it’s not much of a counter because Malenko hangs onto the sleeper. It’s a visually muddy spot, and the crowd responds by asking/requesting/harassing some lady in the audience to share a quick viewing of her boobs with the crowd. There’s a tiny pop at some point that makes me think she did it, but really quickly. Don't give in to the social pressure, sis. Anyway, did you know that this match sorta stinks? It goes on for what feels like forever. It’s just on and on with chokes and guys kicking each other’s knees and shit. And yeah, Malenko injures Bret’s groin by trying to hang him up on the top rope and failing miserably. A few dudes in the crowd chant BO-RING while Bret lays around on the floor holding said injured groin. Hey fellas who read this, I think that Dean Malenko kinda sucks. He was useful in establishing the Cruiserweight division as a base for the high flyers, but I don’t think we need this guy to get a bigger push as part of the Horsemen. He hasn't been a positive on television since the Jericho feud, in my humble opinion. This match is STILL GOING. Bret gets to the ropes on a Texas Cloverleaf, and then they fight over a chair outside, and after that, Malenko hits a missile dropkick back in the ring for two. Finally, Bret clips Malenko’s leg as Malenko tries to leapfrog him, bashes Malenko’s knee against a post, and then hits a bulldog onto the chair that got brought in from outside. The Hitman prepares to Pillmanize Malenko, and Diamond Dallas Page runs out of the crowd. Page eats a chair shot, but dodges another one and tries to hit a Diamond Cutter that the Hitman blocks. Page just punches the guy out of the ring in response. This was the worst possible match that involves the Hitman, Dean Malenko, and DDP that you could possibly imagine. Wait, I spoke too soon; Page gets on the mic and calls the Hitman “Bret ‘HitSCUM’ Hart.” OK, now it's the worst possible match involving those three, and also, shut the fuck up, Page. Page refuses to shut up and calls Bret a wuss. This didn't sorta stink; it completely sucked and I hated it. Page challenges Bret to a match next week on Nitro. I’m downgrading my expectations for that match from “decent” to “barely adequate” considering that the already disinterested Hitman also now has a shoot groin injury. Goldberg comes out here to bring some life back to this show by steamrolling the Giant (on jobber entrance because we’re on overrun/Giant’s recently been to Connecticut to visit Vinnie Mac so fuck 'im). Goldberg kicks out of a chokeslam, eats a couple of chops for dinner, and then murders the dude with a spear and a Jackhammer in a couple minutes, and the high of that demolition (and that Jackhammer, which was a complete visual spectacle) is immediately brought back to a mediocre low by WCW insisting that Bam Bam Bigelow is a legitimate threat to Goldberg in 1998. I like Bammer, but no, this is not 1988, and it’s not the spot for him. There’s a huge pull-apart at the end, but that’s not going to make me want to see Goldberg/Bam Bam in 1998. Kevin Nash comes out to face off with Goldberg after security carts Bam Bam away, which is actually a hot pull-apart. This show had some missteps, and Bret/Malenko was a new low in Bret’s WCW run, but most of it was pretty enjoyable. As usual, if you can ignore all the shitty angles and below-average mic work from most of the guys on this show, you can derive some fun out of the faux fisties. Say what you will about late-stage WCW, but they’ve still got a lot of diverse and interesting in-ring talent at this point. Uh, except for Bret and Malenko, somehow. 2.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

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