SirSmUgly

Thunder Interlude – show number thirty-seven – 22 October 1998 "The WCW Gang takes a low-key path to Halloween Havoc '98” Honestly, as I won’t have a lot of time later in the week to review, I decided to cut a quicker pace…I just want to get Havoc out of the way by tomorrow’s end… Watching this much late 1998 WCW in such a short period is hazardous to my love of professional wrestling, but I endure… After the commentary desk hypes the big angles, Super Calo opens the show against Rey Misterio Jr….Huh, is this one of those fabled “hot cruiserweight openers” that I’ve heard WCW is supposed to have established on their shows?...Tony S. announces Sting versus the Giant as the Thunder main event…They definitely have awesome chemistry, but I doubt it’ll go very long…This is a fun little opening match…Calo is game for heeling a bit and hits a couple of nice moves, including a solid missile dropkick after running up the ropes on a whip to the corner…This is actually the best Calo has looked in any WCW match I’ve ever seen him in…All his dives and risky moves look picturesque…Rey looks good, too, considering that he’s coming off a long layoff (again)…Rey crotches Calo up top and then hits a fantastic-looking top-rope rana for three…Why don’t they do this every show?... Aw, to quote something Van Hammer might say, “Don’t harsh my buzz,” because the lWo is out here to offer Rey membership…Chavo Jr. watches from the aisle…It could be audio sweetening, but it also could be that they’re doing this in Albuquerque because Eddy gets some cheers…I guess Chavo Jr. vocally wants to be in this group now?...He begs for an invitation to the lWo from his spot in the aisle...Rey prefers to do his wrestling solo, and Eddy is displeased… After some Goldberg/DDP hype in video form, Page joins Tony S. in the ring to talk with him…Page says that when he thinks of the World Heavyweight Championship, he thinks of one thing: Goldberg…Duh, stupid…Anyone reading this knows how I feel about Page’s babyface promos, so I won’t belabor my point other than to say that this one is probably worse than the average for him…Page gets booed a bit, actually, but he deserves it…They still chant along with him at the end, though… Johnny Swinger makes a random Thunder appearance to face Alex Wright…A small pocket of this crowd really gets on Wright as the match opens…Swinger stays focused enough to score a handful of offensive moves and yell DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!...Wright hangs Swinger over the top rope and then stomps him in a cool spot…The slowpokes in Albuquerque start a U-S-A chant…I guess that show of patriotism inspires Swinger to hit a knee…It doesn’t help much more than that, though…Wright dropkicks a diving Swinger out of the air and drops him with a reverse neckbreaker for three… A bunch of Nitro recap sandwiches a commercial break… Chris Kanyon faces Chris Jericho for the WCW Television Championship…Huh, that’s an intriguing matchup…Wow, the audio sweetening is done in awful fashion…You can hear the canned cheering drop out while Kanyon grabs a mic…Kanyon asks who betta than him as Jericho puts rabbit ears behind his head…Jericho cuts in and says that actually the issue is that Jericho is the guy who is betta than everyone, which the crowd does not agree with…Kanyon attacks Jericho for stealing his catchphrase…Jericho takes control and hits a Hot Shot…Jericho hits his springboard corner dropkick as we go to break…Back from break, Jericho stuffs a Kanyon comeback attempt and hits an Asai moonsault for two…Jericho gets two off a vertical suplex and a cocky pin…Jericho bonks his noggin on a missed corner splash attempt…Kanyon gets a little space, but gets countered into a gourdbuster not long after he gets control…Jericho scores a two-count, but jumps himself right into a Northern Lights Suplex for two…Kanyon gets two on a swinging neckbreaker…Hey look, it’s Raven!...He hands out at ringside, watching the bout…In the ring, Jericho tries a Lion Tamer, but Kanyon eyepokes his way out and gets two on a pancake…Kanyon’s looking for some sort of top rope move, but he gets headbutted to the mat…Jericho follows with a missile dropkick, but Kanyon pulls the ref in the way…Jericho clowns on the ref, who is out…Raven comes in and tries to get an Evenflow in on Jericho, but Jericho counters into a Lion Tamer…Raven taps out while a groggy Silverman disqualifies Kanyon for referee assault…I guess this leads to Raven/Jericho at Havoc, which hopefully will get more time than it did on that recent Nitro… More Nitro recap…Perry Saturn is out after that…He meets Norman Smiley, who gets a jobber entrance even though he unequivocally is NOT a jobber…Deathbed WCW might suck, but giving Norman Smiley more TV time is one of the decent things about it…These guys have a pacey opening centered around countering armbars…Saturn and Smiley counter, counter, counter…Smiley hits a slam and thinks about dancing…Alex Wright and Disco Inferno should be out here recruiting this guy…And Tokyo Magnum too, dammit…Smiley disrespectfully slaps Saturn after a period of control, which is a mistake…Saturn lands some loud chops and a superkick…Smiley tries to stop the wave of offense with an eye poke, but gets suplexed, clotheslined, Falcon Arrow’d and DVD’d with absolutely no Video Review in the bargain…After getting three, Saturn ruffles Charles Robinson’s hair and they share a chuckle for some reason…It made me laugh…Even commentary was like, Huh, Saturn is loving life… Scotty Riggs versus Lex Luger is the next match…Honestly, I expected Konnan…Lex might as well not exist at this point, the way he's been booked…There’s cooling a guy off, and there’s whatever the fuck Bischoff has done to Luger in 1998…I’m still readying my disbelieving rant about the booking of the Wolfpac for January ’99, for that matter…This is a babyface Lex Luger singles match, so I don’t need to really call this for you…Luger is still very over, by the way…We get a lovely Riggs dropkick during the heel control segment…Riggs can’t do much else interesting in his heel control segments, but that dropkick really is something…Luger drops Riggs with two clotheslines and a metal forearm, but in a minor subversion, Riggs jawbreakers his way out of a Torture Rack attempt…Riggs misses a big crossbody from the top and gets powerslammed before finding himself getting racked and submitting… Thunder continues to feed me a diet of decent TV wrestling bouts with only some video recap of Nitro to remind me of the bad creative direction of the company…Well, the recap videos and the lWo showing up…Anyway, Prince Iaukea faces off with Juventud Guerrera next…As Juvi and Iaukea cut a pace, I think that this Thunder really does embody the sort of Nitro/Thunder that people reminisce positively about…Iaukea gets two on a snap suplex…Iaukea works over Juvi, who got a lot of high-pitched screams on his way out…Juvi fires back with chops and a Rocker Dropper…Juvi is rolling…He lands a diving wheel kick from the top and goes up for a split-legged moonsault…Disco Inferno is still beefing with Juvi, though, and runs down and tries to knock trip Juvi up…It doesn’t work, and Juvi lands it and gets three…Kidman comes out to join the fray and they all beat up and then dive on one another…Well, Disco doesn’t do any dives because he’s Disco…But the other two do… There’s more recap, all Bischoff stuff, and then Konnan shows up and competitively squashes Scott Armstrong…Konnan hits as many catchphrases as he can before the match…Konnan also hits a bunch of his typical offense at an oddly slow pace, as is his way…Armstrong gets in some offense in a nothing heel control segment…Konnan hits a floatover bulldog to stop the flow of Armstrong offense…He hits a clothesline, then leapfrogs Armstrong and bends him over with a back kick…Konnan lands a sit-out facebuster and wraps Armstrong in the Tequila Sunrise for a quick tap-out… Aw, an unfortunate Kendall Windham sighting is upon us…Well, at least they corrected the spelling of Kendall’s name in the chyron…They never even bothered correcting Neidhart’s name…Dean Malenko comes out to face him…WTF, they let that bum Kendall talk before the match…Kendall Windham has the nerve to say that Dean Malenko isn’t good enough for the Four Horsemen…He’s right, but I don’t think it’s his fucking place to say it…I don’t see the first name “Barry” writtten before his last name in his chyron, so he can shut the fuck up…Malenko eats a bit of cursory offense before quickly taking control and getting a submission off a Texas Cloverleaf in about ninety seconds…Oh no, now Dean gets a microphone and talks…Why are they doing this to me?...And every other viewer unfortunate enough to watch this segment?...Malenko threatens Bischoff…At least it’s short, I guess?...The rest of the Horsemen come out to join Malenko…Arn cuts a promo in which he threatens Bischoff, especially if Bisch says something about his family...Flair speaks next…He wants Bischoff’s job…I think he becomes the new Commissioner at some point and the job goes to his head…I am decidedly not looking forward to that playing out if I have remembered it correctly… The Giant and Sting comprise your main event if you’ll recall…It happens next…Well, uh, the Giant is out here with fewer than six minutes on the play clock, so it doesn’t really happen over a long period of time more suitable for such a big match…Sting is out next…He’s growing facial hair under that red paint…It looks stupid…Sting doesn’t have time to take his coat off before the fight starts…Sting returns punches with a few of his own, but is caught and dumped when trying a Stinger Splash…The Giant controls…His side Russian just hits different…Giant misses an elbow drop…Sting hits three Stinger Splashes and then gets a big pop by body slamming the big man…Sting goes for a Scorpion Death Lock, so Scott Steiner runs in and slams Sting in the leg with a chair…Oh great, it’s an nWo beatdown…I love those things, they don’t happen often enough for me…Rick Steiner comes in for the save even though the Wolfpac is in the building…He chases his brother off and allows Sting to get a bat and clear the ring…Oh, here’s the Wolfpac, a good hour or two late… I complain, but this show was actually pretty entertaining until Kendall Windham showed up…Sting and the Giant were good, but that was a nothing match…The rest of it was a steady diet of entertaining television bouts…It gets a WOOO from me…

Show #162 – 19 October 1998 “The one that backloads most of the bad main event feud segments and therefore produces a much more watchable Nitro than of late" The show starts with a recap of Eric Bischoff being a terrible on-screen heel. Oh great, I hoped they’d do this because it was my favorite thing about last week’s show! Anyway, this Bischoff/Flair feud is complete ass. Just have the Horsemen come back and get a four-way dance for control of the company going between them, the Wolfpac, Hollywood, and the WCW rump locker room led by Page and Goldberg. Oh, and make sure WCW wins. See how easy that is? Even a moron could book it. The Nitro Girls do a routine. The desk promises us more of this Bischoff/Flair crap. Oh joy. I guess the opening recap wasn’t enough because we get more recap and more Bischoff. I always find it funny that Bischoff argued that Vinnie Jr. and the WWF copied their formula because actual footage of these shows reveal the reverse, especially when it comes to the whole “running angle throughout the night that we go back to every little while across multiple segments” deal. That’s actually a genuine innovation of Attitude Era WWF that I think is a neat thing. It’s also something that the WWF was very good at doing, but that WCW has failed at every time once they started trying to do it in mid-1998. Saturn vs. Kenny Kaos sounds alright, man, alright. Bonus; we’re not even six minutes into the show before it starts! Saturn has no problem controlling Kaos to start, but eats a back elbow and a short lariat. Kaos tries to follow up with some offense, but Saturn easily counters an arm drag with a facebuster and a swinging neckbreaker. Kaos tries really hard to keep up, basically, and Saturn is typically able to stay ahead of him. That’s how this match’s narrative goes. Even when Kaos wins a battle of counters, his control of the match always feels perilous. Kaos does hit a nice charging lariat into the corner, then a gutwrench powerbomb for two. Kaos lands a back body drop, but he celebrates instead of staying on his target. Kaos follows up with a struggle press slam, sells his elbow being hurt (maybe as a save for not being as strong as the great Robbie Rage, maybe because of actual injury), and shortly after loses control of the match. Saturn scores a superkick for two, gets caught with a Kaos desperation jawbreaker, but recovers quickly and lands a belly-to-belly, a lariat, and a Falcon Arrow before finishing Kaos off with the DVD. Oh wow, put a couple of fun TV workers in an opener that happens relatively close to the beginning of the show, and the crowd gets into things in the arena! What a thought. Bonus: Your TV audience doesn’t feel like flipping channels! Mike Tenay talks to the Minnesotan ham ‘n eggers outside the arena in a pre-tape. Everyone talks about Eric Bischoff, the star of last week’s Nitro (and of pro wrestling in general). The Nitro Girls do a dance routine with folding chairs. Then, suddenly, Whisper and AC Jazz jump Spice and give her a Con-Chair-To! Wow, Spice is laid out! No, that last bit with the chair attack didn’t happen, I just wanted you to get a sense of your own gullibility (or lack thereof, in which case, congrats). We get that pre-taped Scott Steiner promo in which he runs down his dipshit brother Ricky. Please let this feud end after Havoc, sweet FUCK. Now we get the desk wondering how Chucky will involve himself in the match. Sweet FUCK. Then we get video of the Chucky promo from last week. SWEET FUCK. A Goldberg/DDP promo is next up. I can’t wait until Bisch tries a different formula for his shows because this new shitty pacing that stacks two straight segments with promos and recaps sucks really badly. Here comes the lWo! I guess that it’s stylized “LWo,” but no, that’s not how it should be stylized considering that it further waters down a gimmick stylized as “nWo.” Eddy formed the lWo because he’s upset that Bischoff makes all the lucha wrestlers fight one another, so he’s accepted an eight-man-tag in which all the luchadores…fight one another. Wouldn’t it be more logical that Eddy has his team come out and refuse to fight, then cuts another bad worked-shoot promo? There are a lot of wrestlers in this thing, hold on: Lizmark Jr., Chavo Jr., La Parka, and Ciclope face Psicosis, Damian, El Dandy, and Hector Garza. In the general thread, people are talking about the Gang Warz that went on in 1997 WWF. One point made was that the DoA often ended up as the babyfaces even though they were an Aryan Brotherhood biker gang, and uh, yeah, except for that one white teen with the glasses holding up the Black Power fist in what is a CLASSIC GIF, most of the (majority white) audience is not identifying with the Black Nationalist NoI offshoot or the, uh, Latin Supremacy Gang? Retroactive MS-13 knockoff? Whatever Los Boricuas were trying to be. I make this point because ostensibly, Eddy is a babyface who is trying to get back at Bischoff for being a small-minded racist who has put a ceiling on the progress of the luchadores because of their ethnicity. However, putting together an explicitly pro-Latin group is not exactly going to get the crowd on their side! This idea is dumb, but then again, making Eddy cut shoot promos on Bischoff because they had an IRL disagreement backstage is also dumb. Very, very dumb. I am sorry to not mention the match, especially because these dudes do a bunch of reckless dives and Parka hits a ton of dudes with a chair. They try hard, and the crowd does enjoy the car crash element. I will note that in the finish, Parka wipes out Lizmark and Ciclope, allowing Psicosis to win the match. Parka has joined the lWo! Note that Parka did not hit Chavo. Eddy comes down and tries to get this dumbass angle over on the mic. He fails. Note that the (mostly white) Minnesotan crowd lightly boos Eddy’s rant even though they initially cheered Eddy showing up, and this isn’t the first time that’s happened. What are they even trying to accomplish with this fucking angle? Do they understand their audience's demos? The Bret Hart/Sting feud is a bummer. I didn’t need this video recap to remind me of this. Alas, they play it anyway. Kanyon comes to the ring and attempts to get everyone to say that NOBODY BETTA THAN KANYON. This poor bastard, the crowd says EVERYBODY BETTA. Then he demands that Leathers, and I quote, “play Obi-Wan Jabronie’s music” so that he can hurry up and get to the pay windah, HAHAHAHAHA. Fucking Kanyon. Pirate Scott Putski, ARRRR is the guy to come out, which makes what Kanyon said even funnier. Pirate Scott does hit Kanyon with a yardarm – err, arm drag – and then makes Kanyon swab the decks – oops, I mean hit the deck after a tilt-a-whirl slam. Anyway, Kanyon takes over and lands a top-rope facebuster for two. He continues to dominate on the outside of the ring after a baseball slide, and then locks in a chinlock back in the ring that Putski quickly evades. Putski tries to make Kanyon walk the plank with a series of moves, but alas, it’s a mutiny! Kanyon evades the Polish Hammer and scores a flapjack and a Flatliner for three. But seriously though folks, Scott Putski stinks. Hogan/Warrior video package. This feud went on in real time for two months, but over this viewing, it feels like about ten months. It’s hour number two. Three matches in hour number one made the whole deal go a lot quicker. Scott Steiner enters to “Rockhouse.” I was so certain that it’d be Hogan and Bischoff entering that I feel like I got a pleasant surprise that the better Steiner Brother walked out here instead. Steiner threatens Dave Penzer and takes Penzer’s mic, then cuts a promo. He is confident that the ladies want him, then says that he brought three freaks with him who left with a single smile on their faces. One smile? I guess the other two got the “ick” after Scotty tried to seduce them. Scotty tests his “Big Poppa Pump is your hookup, holla if you hear me” catchphrase because Nash and Konnan are playing a bunch of then-contemporary rap for him in the back. That catchphrase is a direct rip of Master P’s “I Got the Hookup.” Man, even before Master P actually came into the company, half of WCW was ripping off No Limit songs for catchphrases. It’s too bad that Konnan didn’t have better taste in New Orleans-area rappers, or they could have been ripping off Cash Money songs for catchphrases. Actually, I’m glad nobody played the third verse of the Big Tymers “Get Your Roll On” for Scotty, or Turner might have thrown WCW off the air earlier than they did. Ricky comes to the ring to respond, but Scotty leaves. Ricky challenges Scotty, so Scott thinks about it, declares that Minnesota and Ricky both suck, and asks for a fair fight. Rick responds by beaning him with the microphone, haha, and then a beatdown commences. Scotty gets his ass beat, but scores a low blow and uses a chair to hit Rick in the knee. Buff runs down for the save. The crowd explodes because, you know, they still want to cheer Buff. Oh, you poor simple rubes. The Nitro Girls get a video package. Then they get an IRL dance. It distracts me from one of the dumber things that Tony S. is talking about, namely that Bret Hart and Sting are going to meet in the ring tonight even though they have a match on for Havoc in six days. Tony S. introduces a, uh, Sarah Jessica Parker UNICEF promo. Well, that was unexpected. We get video of a Goldberg autograph signing in which some kids chant GOLDBERG, then yell TRICK OR TREAT FOR UNICEF while Goldberg hits the thumbs up. That was delightful in a weird way. Fit Finlay faces off with the British Bulldog, which will be a heck of a battle if Finlay is Protestant, but which might turn into a bloodletting if Finlay is Catholic. I’m impressed that Bulldog is still making dates what with that back injury and that terrible crack addiction. I understand that I’m saying this in retrospect, but Bulldog looks very unhealthy and like his heart might explode at any second. I don’t think I’m just noticing this now, either. Bulldog in blue jeans in late ‘90s WWF also looked like an unhealthy guy, and I noticed that at the time. Bulldog uses his power to take an early advantage, but Finlay gets control and throws some nice European uppercuts and forearms before hitting some apron-based offense. He trues a corner charge, wipes himself out, and allows a Bulldog comeback. Bulldog clobbers Finlay in the corner, shoves Nick Patrick away when Patrick tries to break it up, and gets clobbered with a missile dropkick by an onrushing Alex Wright. Wright revives the ref while Finlay lands a Tombstone on Bulldog for three. Wright dances rather than escaping, which is dumb because he pissed Finlay off last week. Finlay plants him with a flipping Fireman’s Carry slam and then leaves. Gene Okerlund is back, but at least he’s not hosting ten segments a night. Okerlund introduces Chris Jericho (w/Ralphus) for an interview. Jericho is upset that he’s, um, “beaten” Goldberg Greenberg three times without acknowledgement. Jericho calls Goldberg out tonight, so Goldberg must not be in the building. Okerlund notes that Goldberg is at a UNICEF function. Of course. Jericho then runs down Page for challenging the wrong champion at Havoc and declares that nobody cares about Page, which he pronounces “Pah-ZHAY” like a weirdo. Page comes out and calls Jericho “Jerkicho,” but no, it only works when Jericho misnames someone on purpose. Sorry, Page. Anyway, Page challenges Jericho tonight, which sounds like a hell of a match! Scott Hall’s at the bar in the Target Center. Tony S. mentions that he’s one-half of the tag champs. Huh, yeah, he is, isn’t he? And the Giant’s the other half. What if they ever defended those things, or maybe dropped them to a tag team that could use them? Wrath crushes poor unloved Tokyo Magnum. Magnum was abandoned by his "friends" and idols Disco Inferno and Alex Wright, and shame on them for it! This is a fun squash, with the added bonus that Tony S. tells me that Wrath/Meng is on for Havoc. Hell, yeah! Wrath wins with a Meltdown in about a minute. 1998 UNICEF promo. 2024 Peacock promo of a Bray Wyatt special. 1998 reminder of Buff saving Rick earlier in the night (and ripping his nWo shirt off, which I’m not sure we saw originally). Disco Inferno dances out. Alex Wright dances out behind him. Hey, uh, someone go check on poor Tokyo Magnum. Aw, you two don’t even care, do you? The Boogie Knights are back together tonight to face Super Calo and Silver King. Calo and King say they have a surprise for the Boogie Knights, and that surprise is that they’re skipping this match and letting Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit (w/Arn Anderson) jump in and beat the shit out of the Knights instead. Uh, okay, sure, I guess? The crowd is weirdly subdued for this, though they react with a few boos when *sigh* ratings hit Eric Bischoff comes out and kicks Mike Tenay off the booth. Bischoff does some shitty angry heel commentary. It almost ruins what is a fun little sprint. Alex Wright is legitimately very good at this point, I think. He’s still got timing issues sometimes, but he’s better with coming up with stuff to do in heel control segments. Disco and Wright control, but Disco dances so much that Malenko crawls over and tags in Chris Benoit. I think this is Benoit’s first time on TV in months. It’s sort of weird that they didn’t promote his comeback match since he is over enough to warrant that sort of treatment. It takes Benoit less than a minute to slip a Crippler Crossface on Disco and get a victory. The crowd encourages Bischoff to put himself on TV more often by chanting BISCHOFF SUCKS, which is especially egregious considering how little they reacted for the tag team switcheroo. I can’t imagine showing more enthusiasm for booing Eric Bischoff than for cheering the Horsemen. Kevin Nash must have a time machine because I’m guessing he found and played The Iconz’s 2001 song “Get Fucked Up” for a stumbling, bumbling Scott Hall in 1998, who we see stumbling and bumbling in the bar. Chris Jericho vs. Diamond Dallas Page is next up. Page wins a lockup easily; Jericho blames a phantom hair pull. Page controls the arm next, so Jericho actually uses a hair pull to escape, then bails and preens a bit. What a dick! Jericho tries to use speed to confuse Page, but eats a short lariat and a DDPancake for two. Page follows up with corner punches, but gets hung up on the ropes and springboard dropkicked off the apron. Jericho takes control at ringside, bashing Page around the area, and back in the ring, he barely gets a one-count off a wimpy pin. Jericho has a bit more control, but gets punched and clotheslined on a DDP comeback, then covered for two after DDP hits a back suplex. Jericho escapes a Page assault with a jawbreaker, lariat, and Asai moonsault that gets 2.5. Jericho looks for a suplex, but gets countered into an armbreaker for two. Page sets up for a Diamond Cutter, so Jericho flips out of it and scores a kick to the nuts, then tries a Lion Tamer that page uses his leg length to counter. Jericho rushes him and eats a tilt-a-whirl slam. Page signals to the fans that he’s looking for a Diamond Cutter, so Goldberg (who left the UNICEF event early just to get down here and beat the hell out of Chris Jericho) runs in and spears Jericho. Page turns around, irritated that Jericho has now defeated him by DQ. He stops Goldberg from hitting Jericho with a Jackhammer and at least scores that Diamond Cutter he was planning on before he faces off with Goldberg to a mega-pop. Literally everyone in that match/post-match segment (other than J.J. Dillon and all the security that rushes into the ring) was way the hell over. You can see a healthy WCW’s future in this segment. Hall is drunk as hell and the ladies love it! Raven’s music plays for some reason. Then it stops. Fucking Craig Leathers. Rey Misterio Jr.’s music starts, and he just shows up again after injury with minimal (if that) promotion for his return. He’s got a shot at Billy Kidman’s Cruiserweight Championship, which makes sense, as Misterio beat Jericho for that belt cleanly a few months back before being stripped of the title and heading back out with a knee injury because I’m not sure he let himself heal properly the first time around. Kidman’s music is different and doesn’t have the porn funk intro, sadly. They grapple a bit, and despite being outsized, Misterio holds his own. It’s like no one wants to risk being the first to up the tempo and go to the air, but the natural course of things is for lots of running, and Rey wins the first speedy exchange with a headscissors. Kidman wins a headscissors of his own on the second up-tempo exchange. They run some more, and after a couple of counters, Kidman scores a dropkick for two. Kidman slows it down with an elbowdrop and a chinlock after that two count. He starts to impose his size advantage, whipping Misterio hard into the corner and using more strikes. Misterio does land a wheel kick to stop that bit of Kidman dominance, then goes up and hits a pretty crossbody for two. Misterio tries to keep the pace up, but Kidman catches him in a wheelbarrow slam off a rope run for two. Kidman tries to suplex Rey, but is reversed and suplexed to the floor. The crowd is bored by this match and amuses themselves with a GREEN BAY SUCKS chant. This is a less pacey match, sure, and Misterio has been out pretty much all year and needed some hyping before his return, but still, Minnesota getting bored with this, but excited to chant abuse at Bischoff over on the desk tells you a lot about how shitty this crowd is. They’re sneakily shitty in that they’re loud sometimes, but they’re loud in dumb ways. The crowd chants some more about their Packers hatred while these two, honestly, have a slow-paced match that’s not particularly good. It’s not bad! It’s just fine, just there, and Kidman’s power wrestling is pretty boilerplate. Rey dumps Kidman outside with a headscissors, then hits a slingshot splash to Kidman on the floor. The crowd is bored as hell by this gorgeous-looking move. Rey goes up and Kidman meets him; Kidman ends up hanging stomach-first on the ropes, and Rey hits a guillotine legdrop and covers for two. Back to standing, Kidman wins out with strikes, but whiffs on a Frog Splash. Rey goes up and hits a seated senton splash for two. Misterio follows up with a weird-looking Rocker Dropper where he bars the arm with his legs for two more. Kidman fights up and gets two of his own on a sit-out slam. He scores a springboard bulldog and goes up for the SSP, but Rey’s playing possum and quickly knocks Kidman into a seated position, then hits him with a Frankensteiner for 2.9. They rope run, and Misterio hits a facebuster for two. Misterio hammers the mat in frustration, then goes up to try and finally finish this guy off, but Kidman catches a diving Misterio with a dropkick, and then…uh, the bell sounds? There was a time limit on this thing? Come the fuck on, there’s never a time limit for Cruiserweight matches. This is some fucking nonsense. If you don’t want to put someone over, don’t have the match. Fuck off, WCW. Gene Okerlund introduces the mayor of Minneapolis, who gets booed, followed by JESSE chants. Oh, Minneapolis! The mayor and Okerlund introduce Kirby Puckett and John Randle, both of whom come to the ring to a big pop. Okerlund is nice enough to point out that the mayor erased the boos by introducing people who are actually popular. What a guy that Okerlund is! The mayor now introduces Ric Flair and declares this RIC FLAIR DAY, WOOOO, but she just “woos” like a regular person would “woo” and not like Ric Flair “woos.” Bischoff comes out here so he can have his vanity segment where the mayor’s law enforcement and John Randle can threaten him. The mayor really gets into crapping on Bischoff and gets cheered. Hell, she might have gotten re-elected off the strength of this segment. This might have been her “Nixon on Laugh-In” moment. One of the cops tells Bisch that he needs to leave the building or be carted to one of the many inhumane jails in the area, then says that Bischoff’s got warrants. I don’t usually believe cops when they say anything, but Bischoff having warrants seems possible, even probable. We see Bischoff storm to the back, where his rental gets towed. Everyone fake laughs. A quick Wikipedia check reveals that this mayor lost to a dude endorsed by the local police in the largest mayoral beatdown in history. I am not going to even get into the fraught political and social analysis of this revelation except to note that Ric Flair Day offered only a temporary bounce in her popularity. Alas. The nWo Hollywood Scotts Hall and Norton (but not Steiner) come to the ring along with Stevie Ray. Hall stumbles around with a drink in his hand. Norton is rocking the IWGP belt. This is supposed to be a six-man tag against the Wolfpac, but only Lex Luger and Konnan come out, no Kevin Nash to be seen. Nash might not be here and the Wolfpac’s team might be down a man, but that’s not stopping Konnan from hitting the ol’ catchphrase roulette. We go to the back, and Kevin Nash pretends to be drunk, but if I recall this correctly, it’s a ruse. Nash wanders around while the match starts, until finally we get a huge pop as Nash weaves down the aisle. Hall loves the idea that Nash is wasted and toasts him. This is an angle more than a match, so let me skip all the match talk and just inform you about the angle: After some boring stuff, Hall and Nash tag in. They “too sweet” one another and drink, but then Nash shows that he’s just faking. Hall turns around into a big boot and then gets knocked around the ring a bit. Nash finally getting his hands on Hall after all this time is nice, but maybe this wasn’t the most efficient way to do that? The ref calls for the bell for reasons I cannot fathom, and the Hollywood contingent just leaves. As I watch this Hogan/Warrior promo, I realize that neither man has been on the go-home Nitro yet, and that would explain in some significant way why this Nitro is going to get a surprisingly positive score. I mean, sure, Hogan comes out here for the main event, but that’s okay. He didn’t cut a promo this week, so that’s a massive – oh no, wait, he cuts Buffer off and takes his mic. Well, look, it could have been worse. That’s my point. It could have been worse. Oh yeah, I forgot that Hulk Hogan was wrestling Horace Hogan, I guess, in some sort of “if I beat up my family, what will I do to you” sort of deal. Hogan says SHOOT WITH THIS THING AND TELL ‘EM WHAT YOUR REAL NAME IS. Well, I assume that his shoot name is Micheal Bollea, not Horace Hogan, which is what Horace says his name is. The Giant and some B-Teamers come down next as Horace tries really hard to act like he might cry when Hulk expresses his love for him. Anyway, Hulk beats down Horace to make a point to Warrior, including a chair shot to the dome. Warrior comes out, and he’s stolen Sting’s bat gimmick to boot. He clears the ring until the Giant catches him with a chokeslam; Hogan spray paints Warrior’s chest and then drops a couple of legs. It stunk, but look, it was less of a stinkfest than most Hogan promos and segments. Bret Hart comes out and cuts a promo about this ice cold Sting feud. He cuts a boilerplate, somewhat crappy promo (except for the part where he calls out his cat pal Smokey); Sting comes out and has a low-intensity brawl/wrestling match with him. Sting locks on a Scorpion Death Drop and refuses to let go as refs run down and the crowd sits on its hands. Stevie Ray and Vincent run down and finally cause Sting to break it, but Sting beats them both up. The last twenty or thirty minutes of this show was poop, but the stuff that came before it was generally okay! 2.5 out of 5 Stinger Splashes

Thunder Interlude – show number thirty-six – 15 October 1998 "The WCW Gang puts on an unmemorable and inoffensive two-hour show, and it represents considerable improvement on the usual in late '98” Let’s knock out another Thunder so maybe one day, I might make it through Halloween Havoc ’98… The desk intros the show and then, huh, they have a match?...A wrestling match?...No one is going to talk for five minutes, followed by three straight video packages for the same feud?...Is this allowed?... Sick Boy faces Van Hammer in this opener, but look, I’m just glad we’ve got some wrestling to start…Hammer tells Sick Boy DON’T FREAK OUT on a corner break…Hammer wins an exchange and sends Sick Boy outside…Hammer propels himself from the top to the floor, hitting a weak double axe along the way…Sick Boy hangs Hammer’s throat over the rope to take credit, then baseball slides Hammer off the apron and into the railing…Sick Boy wraps on a sleeper, but Hammer reverses it…Vick hits a desperation jawbreaker to escape, then drops a fist…Sick Boy gets two off a springboard back elbow…Sick Boy misses a corner charge…Hammer sits Sick Boy up top and uses Sick Boy’s hair to beal him down…Sick Boy gets whipped to the ropes and ends up caught in an Alabama Slam for three…Or whatever Hammer calls the Alabama Slam, more accurately…This was an entirely cromulent opener… A Four Horsemen hype video plays us into a break… The camera focuses on a cute little girl in a Winnie the Pooh t-shirt and her parents…Then we switch to video of ERIC BISCHOFF, RATINGS MOVER from Nitro…Hey, let’s go back to the cute kid and her parents…This is a loooooooooooooong fucking video package…I’ve said it a few times before, but Bischoff was a much better heel when he figured out in his WWE stint that he should play it closer to his natural self, which is basically an oily used car salesman who happened to luck into an executive position in a wrestling company…This little yell-y, yappy, annoying guy gimmick stinks…This package was so long that we go back into another break after it’s over… Hooray, it’s La Parka!...Welp, it’s Konnan…Honestly, this might be okay depending on how they mesh…Konnan opens things up with a devastating Catchphrase Roulette…It infuriates La Parka, who tries to attack Konnan with a belt…Konnan hits some punches and a rolling clothesline…Parka just cannot cleanly land the back kick nut shot on an opponent who is leaping over him…He should take that one out of the ol’ arsenal…Parka lands a lariat in the corner…Parka gets two on a wheel kick…He makes the mistake of trying go back to a running move into the corner and eats boots on a corner charge…Konnan gets 2.9 on a Crucifix Bomb…Konnan goes to a chinlock, then stands Parka up and chops him…Parka regains control for a short time, but gets tripped and rolled up…Konnan has the weirdest matches sometimes, like the layout has an extra heat/shine segment that doesn't belong and makes even an eight-minute match feel overlong…Konnan once again transitions into control by putting boots up on a Parka corner charge…Konnan hits a floatover bulldog that is bowling shoe ugly (™ Jim Ross), then follows up with a sit-out facebuster and a Tequila Sunrise for three…That was an aesthetic nightmare of a match… Riggs/Finlay is next up…An early deep arm drag scores two for Riggs…Finlay sticks a thumb in Riggs’s good eye to take control…Riggs puts a boot up on a Finlay corner charge…Corner charge attempts are like one-for-five in success rate so far tonight…Maybe these fellas should avoid that strategy…Riggs does some boring arm work, but gets short-arm clotheslined…Nice sit-out splash from Finlay there…Much better than the one Big Josh dropped at WrestleWar ’92 that I saw a couple days ago…Finlay does some apron-based offense…Finlay hits Riggs a lot…He reaches under Riggs’s patch and claws at Riggs’s bad eye…Finlay tries the Vader Bomb, but eats knees…Riggs hits a flurry of offense, but misses a corner charge (see, it’s a bad move tonight) and gets Tombstoned for the loss… Weirdly, the fact that they barely have done much build for Goldberg/DDP relative to the Hogan/Warrior and Bret/Sting build that has dominated these shows means there’s a bit of "we want more" anticipation for and "how will it go" mystery around the former matchup…They still should have done more with those two to lead up to the World Championship match, though…We get a video to hype that match going into the break… I think it’s hilarious that Sonny Onoo almost immediately ditched Kaz Hayashi for Ernest Miller…Kaz meets Billy Kidman tonight…Kaz wins a shoulderblock on a rope run, but badly misses on a wheel kick and gets taken over on a headscissors…Kaz returns a wicked-looking headscissors takeover of his own…Kidman wisely stops Kaz to the mat to slow the pace…Kidman gets another headscissors takeover, then a dropkick and a crossbody to Kaz on the outside…Kidman lands a springboard legdrop for two…They struggle over a suplex before Kaz dumps Kidman to the floor with a belly-to-back…Kaz hits a gorgeous Tsukahara…Kaz waits for Kidman to wobble to his feet, spits in his palm, and chops Kidman…He wins a short chop battle, then goes to a headlock…Kidman fights out, but Kaz lands a knee to the solar plexus and follows with a senton splash…Kaz wanders around the ring a bit, then decides on a chinlock since we’re going to break… Back from break, both men are standing, but not for long…Kidman gets a sunset flip for two, but is met with a lariat from Kaz when he stands up which scores a two count for Hayashi…Kaz lands a springboard senton from the apron to the ring…Kidman whiffs on a corner charge (obviously) and Kaz lands a low dropkick…Kaz sits Kidman down with a rib breaker, then goes up for a moonsault that completely whiffs…Kidman makes a comeback…He lands a rebound lariat, then hits a springboard bulldog for two…Kidman manages a sit-out slam, then tries an SSP…Kaz catches him up top once, then twice, and hits a super jawbreaker (!!!) followed by a brainbuster that gets only two…That really should have been the finish, it was such a nasty combination…Onoo wanders out, suddenly interested in Kaz again…Kidman hits a counter-dropkick to a diving Kaz, but Kaz flips out of a German suplex and hits a rana for 2.9…Kaz hits his own bridging German for two…Onoo is irritated that Kaz hasn’t done the business…He’s probably really irritated that Kaz tries a powerbomb and eats a facebuster counter…I guess that counter isn’t established yet…Kidman goes up and quickly lands an ugly SSP for three… Onoo gets in the ring and throws a ton of kicks at Kaz post-match…Kidman comes back and runs Onoo off…That was a solid wrestling match that got some decent TV time… We get a Scotty Steiner/Buff/Judy recap, then a short recap of that doofus Rick Steiner getting sonned by a fictional killer doll…The last couple weeks of Nitro have had some all-time terrible segments…After that is a Havoc promo that desperately tries to make the Hogan/Warrior feud feel epic… Ernest Miller comes to the ring and talks…He says basically the same thing he normally does…the greatest, three-time karate champ, undefeated, cannot be defeated by mere ‘rasslers, etc.…He calls out Jackie Chan and insults Chan’s diminuitive size…I am praying that Goldberg comes out here and finally kills this guy off…Some dude jumps in the ring and gets a kick to his chest…It’s just a plant…That’s it, that’s the segment… Hey, Prince Iaukea…That guy’s alright, man…Commentary tries to sell the Chucky segment from Nitro and promote Bride of Chucky in an interesting way…They make a valiant effort, but uh, no…Hey, Chavo Guerrero Jr. (w/Pepe)!…I guess I missed Chavo dipping out on the lWo invitation he received from Uncle Eddy last Nitro…That’s probably a reasonable move on his part…Chavo does the Homer Simpson WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP move, so this match is already a success…Chavo shoulderblocks…Chavo cabbage patches…Chavo drops an elbow on the small of Iaukea’s back…Iaukea comes back with a chop and a dropkick, so Chavo bails…Chavo comes back in the ring and, after a series of exchanges, wins an armdrag and a chinlock…He pisses Iaukea off by hitting him with a wet willy…Iaukea is irritated, haha…He gives Chavo a wet willy of his own, then grabs Pepe and threatens the poor horse’s life…Iaukea relents, but as he puts Pepe down, Chavo charges him…Chavo hits a clothesline, then rides Pepe…After Iaukea gets to standing out of a Chavo chinlock, Iaukea hits a series of moves that earn a couple of two counts…He hits a fallaway slam, but Chavo barely hits a Superman Punch that Iaukea (mistakenly) puts a foot up on…That counts as only a half-successful corner move…Eventually, they go up top, where Chavo manages a tornado DDT for three…Decent bout…Chavo is great… DDP comes to the ring to be interviewed by Tony S….The promo, as is par for the course when it comes to babyface DDP, isn’t any good…But after weeks of Hogan, Warrior, and Bischoff cutting promos, Page damn near comes off like ’98 Jericho or ’98 The Rock in comparison…It’s short too, which is another big win for this promo… We’re going to get about ten or eleven minutes for the main event if Buffer can get through these ring announcements without taking his sweet fucking time…This Stevie Ray singles push is confounding…I love the guy for a few reasons, but his singles work is not one of them…Dean Malenko is his opponent, which doesn’t exactly inspire me, either…Virgil is out here, and he distracts Malenko with a bit of trash talk to let Stevie get the jump…Stevie locks on a bearhug as we go into a break… We come back and Stevie hits a big Irish whip to the corner, then lands a side slam for two…Stevie goes to a surfboard…There’s a long Stevie Ray beatdown with occasional interference from Virgil…Malenko hits a desperation back suplex in there, but his sunset flip attempt ends up with him caught in another bearhug…Eventually, Malenko makes his way out and hits a missile dropkick after Stevie misses a corner charge (duh)…Malenko catches a Stevie kick and transitions into a Texas Cloverleaf; cue Vincent and Scott Norton running in for a DQ and a beatdown…The Horsemen run in for the save…Well, it could have outright stunk…It was just mediocre and boring, not memorably bad…Arn cuts a promo in which he notes that Indianapolis is a Horseman town and challenges Bischoff to stop hiding behind cops and office politics…Ric Flair does a few of his greatest hits on the mic and craps on Bischoff…He even lets Malenko talk for a few seconds, which is a rookie mistake...The show ends… This show was inoffensive and I won't remember that it happened in a week or two, which is an improvement from the typical Nitro…WOO…

So you're telling me that it's a two-match show? Honestly, that's probably not fair. I bet Bret/Sting ends up good even if the build has been awful.

Oh goodness no. A modern perv just uses Google Image Search to find the screenshots that everyone else already took. I've only ever heard Southern women say it, but the Midwest is nearby and it seems like something people would say there. I have never heard a man say that phrase until Nash did it, though! Per the rest of your post - that t-shirt was cool. Conquest did suck. And that FUCKING framistan, hahahaha!

It does! My argument is that it's a perfectly acceptable match that is memorable for two reasons: 1. The pre-match angle with Sherri trying to seduce Warrior into promising Savage a title shot if Warrior wins. 2. Savage's determination to interfere in the match because he really does sell that he's desperate to get that title shot and will find whatever way he can to get it onto the guy who promised him a shot in Slaughter. It's secretly an awesome Randy Savage and Sherri performance even though neither of them are actually in the match.

Show #161 – 12 October 1998 "The one where RAW is WAR, but BISCHOFF!!! IS!!!! EXCITEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!" It’s been awhile, what with work being busy lately and 1998 feeling like a never-ending year of television. I can’t believe that I still haven’t made it through Havoc! How have I not made it through Havoc?! The show starts with Eric Bischoff telling security to bar Ric Flair from the building. It’s ineffective heeling because Bischoff stinks at heeling most of the time pre-WWE run. OOPS, WAIT, I MEAN; WOW, HOT START TO THE SHOW TONIGHT CENTERED ON THE ORIGINAL BAD BOSS OF WRESTLING (IF YOU IGNORE McMEMPHIS), ERIC BISCHOFF! We are reminded of what I can only describe as a terrible Nitro main event on last week’s show. Sting got stretchered out for some reason. I don’t know why; that was a low-energy backstage assault (ha!). Not even Chae dancing around in the ring can raise my spirits w/r/t this Nitro. Hey, Tygress seems like she's a really good dancer, which is rare for a Nitro Girl! So, after commentary introduces themselves, we get…another video package of last week’s backstage brawl. I totally forgot that Bret suplexed Sting through a table. I guess they tried! But even that table spot felt kinda soft. If your table spot feels soft, it wasn’t worth doing, because I know it shoot didn’t feel soft to Sting. Now, there's a video of the Hitman challenging Sting in what is somehow a lukewarm feud. I wanted to see Hitman/Sting for so long. How did they manage to make it feel so dreary? Actually, that’s a rhetorical question. They added Hogan into this thing for some stupid reason and put an obvious heel turn into the whole deal as the dingleberry on top of the shit sundae. Now we get another video package for the Hart/Sting feud – WTF?! – and after that, video of the WCW Mastercard stuff from Wall Street. Nine-and-a-half minutes in, and we finally get the intro to the show. I am anti-hyped. Video plays of Meng beating up Chris Adams and then facing off with Wrath from Thunder. I am not opposed to this recap in theory, but after ten minutes of nonsense? Just get a match going. Preferably one that doesn’t involve Rick Fuller. Lodi comes to the ring with his signs, but with no chance against Wrath. It is bullshit that Wrath got cut from WCW/nWo Revenge. I forgot that, so I fired up the game last week and prepared to take Wrath to TV title glory, but no dice. What an oversight on AKI’s part. Anyway, Wrath beats the piss out of Lodi and drops him with a Meltdown in about a minute. Meng walks onto the ramp to confront the victor. They meet in the aisle and brawl, but we have to ASAP go to video of Eric Bischoff talking from the previous Nitro, so we only see about five seconds of said brawl. In the recap, we see Reid hit the ol’ double-leg. I mean, it got a pop, I guess? Kendall Windham wrestles Dale Torborg in Torborg’s Nitro debut. I totally forgot that the KISS Demon existed until this moment. Can you believe that anyone thought that KISS would be relevant to a late ‘90s wrestling audience? Does Vinnie Jr. liking Kid Rock indicate an awful taste in music on his part? Yes. But also, Kid Rock was at least musically relevant in that time period! I don’t fuck with Kid Rock, Disturbed, Saliva, etc., but that stuff was 100% relevant to the twenty-somethings in the audience. KISS? Fucking KISS?! You might be thinking that maybe I should describe this match, but no, it sucks, and you’re missing nothing. A small pocket in the crowd chants BO-RING for a bit, and they are correct in their assessment. Torborg blows out his knee while hitting a big boot for the victory. Whoopsie! It’s the Nitro Girls! I’m going to be totally misogynistic here by noting that Chae, who is choosing of her own volition and through her own agency to dance while wearing sexy clothing on front of a crowd, brings me a terrible male pleasure when I watch her. It is my shame. It is my ignominy. I’m sorry if writing and sharing this with you may have exposed my searing hatred and disrespect of women, but on the flip side, at least I don’t hate or disrespect women quite enough to also screencap and share a shot of Chae grooving! Small victories. Video recap of Goldberg, Page, and Raven getting into it from an earlier show. The Wolfpac’s music hits and Sting stalks to the ring, still looking like a dingus in the red face paint. Sting speaks! I still think that’s a pretty rare thing over the past couple of years. Sting calls the Hitman out for TONIGHT. He also calls Hogan out. For TONIGHT, I guess. Then Sting’s old tag partner Warrior comes to the top of the ramp. Blade Runners reunion! Now, that’s novel. Even if the match sucks, I’ll get a kick out of WCW hosting a Blade Runners reunion in 1998 [Ed. note: I did get a kick out of it for about fifteen seconds]. Warrior plays some inside baseball by alluding to their former partnership and theorizing that maybe it’s the face paint that made them world champions. Actually, I didn’t hate this promo and kind of enjoyed it. I mean, Warrior comes out and, though he does so exceedingly cryptically, says basically this: Hey Stinger, long time, no see. We’re still painting our faces and kicking ass, huh? Anyway, I’m a WWF guy, really, but I’ve been keeping an eye on you from afar and I’m real proud of you and your success in WCW, bruh. I’m only here in WCW to face Hogan; this is your domain. On that note, and in respect to the fact that you run WCW and not me, I humbly propose the following: You want to fuc blow Hulk’s world up and so do I, so how about we tag up tonight for old time’s sake against those two chumps you don’t like? Of course, he says it in an impenetrable way that gets him booed by the end of it, LOL. That’s the end of the first hour, by the way. We have two more hours to go. Look at the recap – video packages and promos galore, one fun Wrath squash that took a minute and another match that stunk and took five minutes. What a dumpster fire of an hour. Hour number two starts as hour number one established: Here comes Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, and the Giant. I guess the Giant’s wrestling Goldberg for the big gold tonight…again. They could have had this match at Road Wild, but they’ve had them confront one another and have one match on Nitro that was unfulfilling. Going back to this again, after having teased it and failed to deliver it since August, is dumb. Hogan cuts what I can only describe as a diabolical promo. He keeps calling himself “’Wood” and “Woody” and generally is a detriment to pro wrestling. Anyway, he accepts that tag match challenge. DO YOU WANT EXCITEMENT?! I SAID, DO YOU WANT EXCITEMENT?!?!?! LET'S WATCH ERIC BISCHOFF RUN THROUGH THE BACK OF THE UNITED CENTER TO POINT AT A LIMO THAT HE THINKS MIGHT HAVE RIC FLAIR IN IT!!!!!! OH YEAH, I’M POPPING HUGE!!!!!!! (They dragged the United Center’s owner down here to give safe passage to Flair and the Horsemen into the arena and the owner’s skybox.) YOU CAN KEEP YOUR STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN AND THE ROCK, WWF!!! BISCHOFF YELLING “I’LL SUE YOU” AT THE OWNER OF THE UNITED CENTER IS WHERE IT’S AT, BABY!!!!!! This is scintillating television! No wonder this Nitro drew a 4.6! It’s not because the wrestling audience was significantly expanded from where it was even a year ago! It’s not true that, as a result of a run of terrible shows, including this show, WCW would shed a ton of that expanded audience in 1999! No, Eric Bischoff walking around backstage is great television, that’s what that 4.6 means! Holy shit, is there going to be any more wrestling on this show? Now we get a shortened version of Warrior’s promo from the previous Nitro and, for reasons which I cannot fathom, a replay of the “Warrior in the mirror” spot that they should have had the sense to pretend never happened. I hope that “Warrior in the mirror” spot gives a greater appreciation to Vinnie Jr. and the bookers who figured out how to make half of the supernatural shit the Undertaker did come off decently enough to avoid completely breaking immersion. I mean, don’t appreciate Vinnie Jr. for anything else because he’s a complete piece of shit, but the Undertaker’s supernatural shit being booked reasonably well, yeah. Fit Finlay faces Alex Wright in Wright’s quest to embarrass every other European wrestler in the company. Wright does some pre-match promo stuff in which he blames Finlay for ending his dad’s career. Should I track down Finlay/Steve Wright on Youtube? I say this as someone who thinks Finlay sucked for sizable stretches of his career and peaked when he was in his forties and wrestling in Ruthless Aggression-era WWE. Finlay doesn’t suck tonight, though. He dominates the younger Wright and hits some cool offense early on, then shakes off a missed shoulderblock that takes him into the post before eating boot on a dive. Wright tries to follow up, but eats a knee on a corner charge, and hey, this match is intense as fuck, but it ends almost immediately after Wright launches Finlay into the top rope on a Finlay leapover and then rolls him up with leverage on the ropes for three. Bulldog runs down and attacks Wright; Finlay helps Bulldog, then attacks Bulldog after Wright escapes. Huh, that was really fun, if a bit short. See, pre-WWF Finlay well might be worth watching! La Parka, Ciclope, and Villano IV face Chavo Jr., Psicosis, and Super Calo in six-man action, and while this show desperately needs some more action, I assume that this will all end with some nonsense lWo crap and Eddy Guerrero desperately trying to cut shoot promos that don’t stink. There are lots of dives, and I welcome them because guys are out here trying to wrestle. Chavo springboards onto like four dudes at one point. Calo wipes himself on a corkscrew splash, and Psicosis mistimes his guillotine legdrop on a covering opponent, so Billy Silverman stops counting a pinfall for no reason except to wait for Psicosis to land the move. Oh well, look, this match is just here so we can get a decent bout. A little later on, Chavo and Calo clear out Parka and IV with suicide dives; Psicosis manages to land a senton splash from the top to the floor on Ciclope…and hey, here’s the lWo. They come out as Chavo Jr. lands a tornado DDT on Ciclope for the victory. There’s a tiny EDDY chant, which is especially cool because it happens in spite of the fact that they’re booking my boy into the ground. Eddy’s basically like Yo, we’re underpaid and disrespected and recruits Psicosis and Chavo. I guess everyone’s on some FUCK SUPER CALO time because the poor bastard isn’t included. I mean, neither are the heels, but that’s understandable. Poor Calo; no one wants to hang out with him. They give Chae a solo. I always assumed Chae was a Korean-American born on the West Coast, knowing many Korean-Americans who were born out here, but she’s a Korean-American born in Seoul and (somewhat obviously in retrospect, considering the company she works for) raised in Georgia. Well, I was going to dunk on Larry Z. for saying she was a mysterious lady from the Far East, but I guess I can’t dunk on the “Far East” part. The weird racialization of Asian women being uniquely mysterious, I can still dunk on, though. Scott Steiner comes out, declares that he can physically pleasure every woman in the audience, disses brother Rick, and craps on Buff Bagwell and Buff’s loyal mother Judy. Scott says he worked their issues out and got Buff to put Judy back in the kitchen, but Buff and his loyal (and unamused) mother Judy storm out to the ring. Buff says he’s got beef with Scott, who threatens to break Buff’s neck. They threaten one another. I assume this is yet another ruse, so it means nothing to me from a dramatic standpoint. Scotty insults Judy and calls her an “old bag” and then, in my favorite insult of anyone maybe ever, an “old scallywag.” HAHAHAHA, I am calling anyone I don’t like an old scallywag. Tremendous. Scott forearms Buff in the balls, but I’m sure Buff’s just wearing a cup in kayfabe (and maybe IRL?!). Scott crows about forearming Buff in the balls and challenges all of Chicago to a fight as we go to break. Juventud Guerrera comes to the ring to face Prince Iaukea. Poor Iaukea gets a jobber entrance. Disco runs out with a mic to declare that the fans want to see him dance rather than seeing them wrestle. I mean, seeing both would be cool with me. Disco tries to dance on the apron, so Iaukea slugs him and the match starts instead. Aw. Kidman comes out, grabs a chair, and chases Disco away while Juvi boots Iaukea in the corner. Iaukea turns it around, gets two on a sunset flip, and gets another two on a side kick. Iaukea hits a legdrop and tries another cover, only gets two, and then follows up with a chinlock. That doesn’t last long; Juvi gets back to standing and eventually scores a Rocker Dropper for two. Juvi tries a dropkick, but misses, and Iaukea lays in the boots. Er, the feet. Iaukea gets two on a snap suplex, and as he follows up, Disco sneaks back to ringside in the style of Repo Man. Juvi uses Iaukea’s top knot to pull the Prince to the mat and take control. Juvi tries a 450, but Disco shoves him off the ropes. Juvi is able to roll through as Iaukea punches Disco again; Iaukea turns around into a Juvi Driver that gets three while Kidman runs back out and beats up Disco. There was a lot going on there! It was perfectly fine television. Kevin Nash comes to the ring dressed like, well, me at the time of this show's original airing, with the FUBU baseball jersey on. He gets a call-and-response on BIG SEXY’S IN THE HOUSE. How does a near-forty-year-old white guy pull this off? He then says that Scott Hall has touched his “last nerve.” Come on, are you kidding me? Well,now that I think about it, maybe he heard this phrase from an angry woman in his time at Tennessee. I think saying that someone is on your “last nerve” is more a Southern thing and a gendered thing than a racial thing. I had a lady teacher who would tell students they had gone past touching her last nerve and were now on her “reserved nerve.” It was a pretty clever play on that phrase! Anyway, Nash says that he’s a former bouncer who is used to beating up drunks, so Hall comes out and drunkenly crotch chops Nash before fleeing with Nash in tow. We follow them backstage, where Nash chases ghosts. He runs outside, where we finally spot Hall in the nWo limo. As the limo drives off Nash slowly chases it in his rented Cadillac. Chris Jericho is still the TV champ. He comes to the ring to defend it against Raven in a match that I am totally interested in. I also expect WCW to screw it up and destroy my interest. Jericho flings Raven into the rail and yells THOSE ARE JERICHO’S RULES into the camera. Jericho grabs a chair, but it’s got a cable wrapped around it, which is good reason for Jericho to struggle with it and allow Raven to dropkick it into his face. Raven sets up the chair in the corner, but his Irish whip is reversed, and he takes a wild bump into the chair and through the ropes. Jericho eats a post charging at Raven shortly after, though. Back in the ring. Raven drop toeholds Jericho into the chair, then tries an Evenflow that gets quickly reversed into a Lion Tamer for the tap out. Huh. That was fun, but way too short. I sure wish they got ten or fifteen instead of three or four. The desk sells that Raven is totally lost without his Flock as part of the post-match gaga. LOL, Gene Okerlund interviews Rick Steiner, but Chucky, the Living Doll of Terror cuts in. Chucky starts by saying, and I swear this is an accurate paraphrase, I GET TO SIMULATE SEX WITH JENNIFER TILLY ON A MOVIE SET TO GET PAID WHILE YOU STAND THERE AND TALK TO RICK STEINER FOR YOUR BREAD. Then, holy shit, Chucky says “Shut the hell up” to Okerlund, and the crowd pops, and Rick says, “Don’t let him talk to you like that.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Chucky just shits on poor dumb Rick and then declares that he’s shooting a movie with Scott Steiner in the lead and won’t countenance any threats against Scotty’s health. Yes, the fictional murderous doll is casting Scott Steiner in an IRL movie. This is a confounding segment, baffling in every way if you think about it for just two seconds. Remember my remark about the WWF pulling off half the Undertaker fuckery that it did being a credit to the creative of Vinnie and company? See this segment as another point in my favor. DDP cuts a QVC spot for a WCW/nWo shopping segment. I need to see if that segment is on the ol’ YouTube because I want to see what sort of crap they sold. OH YEAH, RAMP UP THE EXCITEMENT, ERIC BISCHOFF IS OUT HERE IN THE RING AGAIN!!!!!! BISCH SAYS HE’LL KEEP IT REAL SHORT, BUT PLEASE, NO, DON’T DO THAT, WE WANT MORE OF YOU ON SCREEN CUTTING SCINTILLATING PROMOS!!!!!! (Bisch yells at Dillon and Dellinger for awhile about Flair being in the luxury box, then demands to be led to said box by these two dopes.) WOW, FIVE STAR PROMO!!!!!! WOW, ALSO FIVE STAR TRACKING SHOT OF BISCH GOING INTO THE CROWD!!!!! NOW BISCH IS AT THE DOOR OF THE SKYBOX, AND IT’S SOME WILD TELEVISION!!!!!! HE REALLY LAYS DOWN THE LAW!!!!! OH, NOW HE SHOVES THE NEPO BABY WHO OWNS THE ARENA EVEN THOUGH THE MUNICIPAL, COUNTY, AND STATE GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR TAXPAYERS PROBABLY PAID FOR MOST OF IT!!!!!! AND NOW SECURITY IS ON HIM, WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! BISCHOFF, WOW, WHAT A SEGMENT, HE’S FIGHTING SECURITY AND AS TONY S. SAYS, THIS IS GREAT TV!!!!!!!! FLAIR CELEBRATES AS BISCH IS LED AWAY!!!!!!! OH WOW, THAT’S HOW YOU BE A CORRUPT EXECUTIVE ON A WRESTLING SHOW RIGHT THERE! BISCH IS SUCH A HUMBLE PERFORMER THAT HE ONLY GAVE HIMSELF ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES OF TELEVISION TONIGHT AND WAS THE ONE TO GET EMBARRASSED AT THE END OF HIS MANY, MANY SEGMENTS!!!!!!! THAT’S TRUE GENEROSITY!!!!!! THE DESK FAKE LAUGHING ABOUT THIS ARREST ANGLE IS TRULY THE CAPPER OF WHAT IS A MONUMENT TO PRO WRESTLING ANGLES AND PRESTIGE TELEVISION IN GENERAL!!!!!!! OH, NO, WAIT, YOU THOUGHT WE WERE DONE?!?!?!?! NO, WE’RE NEVER DONE!!!!!! BISCHOFF = RATINGS!!!!!! AND BISCHOFF BEING FROG-MARCHED OUT OF THE ARENA = MEGA RATINGS!!!!!!!! Aw, I guess now we’re going to be forced to watch a Goldberg match. I don’t know why; we need some more star power on this show. Can we find a way for Bischoff to escape security and then come back to confront Ric Flair? The Giant got a fucking jobber entrance because, of course, we needed more time to see Eric Bischoff stalk around backstage. So, you know, it was time well used. The Giant hits a dropkick as I think about Bischoff saying that he let the Giant leave WCW because he couldn’t figure out what else to do with him. Then, he intimated that Vince booking Big Show idiotically over the years proves that he was right about Giant having limited utility because he's too big to be sympathetic. So, yeah, Goldberg comes back, body slams Giant – it rules – and then for some fucking stupid-ass reason, we have Stevie Ray run down and clock Goldberg with a chair. This is a no DQ match, Tony S. helpfully informs me, so Giant follows up with a Goozle, but DDP runs down, breaks it up, hits Stevie with a Diamond Cutter, and then Giant leaves and loses by count-out. Well, if you think Giant doesn’t have enough utility to keep, maybe, IDK, what do y’all think, feed him to Goldberg for the clean loss, you magnificent performer, but lousy goddam booker Eric Bischoff. So, the main event is here. It’s Hogan and Hart against the Blade Runners, the latter of which Buffer says have never teamed together before tonight. See, we’re sliding into enshittification here in WCW, and Buffer is following right along in his ring announcing. That mistake is made funnier because Tenay has made a point of referencing the Blade Runners and talking about how this is their first tag match together in over a decade all night. Tony S. notes that Mortal Kombat: Conquest is premiering after Nitro, and I think that Warrior’s goofy ass would have made a great guest Kombatant in one of the new MK games. Warrior’s jacket design desecrates the American flag. Desecrating the American flag: Now, that’s edgy! We begin with Hogan and Sting in the ring. Hogan comes out of a lockup and hits a few punches, but Sting ducks under a lariat and clobbers Hogan, then hits an inverted atomic drop. Sting throws a few more punches, so Hogan scrambles over and tags Hart. They lock up, and Sting wins a battle of strikes with the Hitman next. He scores ten punches in the corner, so Hogan interferes, which draws Warrior, which distracts the ref, which allows the Hitman to hammer Sting in his nether regions. Hogan and Hart control Sting with the occasional nut punch and, depending on who is in the ring, either quite crisp or kinda shitty offense. This is a sped-up tag match because there were only about eight minutes left in the show when it started. Finally, after one minute of domination and six of getting killed, Sting gets a hot tag to Warrior, who didn’t even take off his longcoat before getting in and beating down the Hitman. Hogan jumps Warrior from behind, and Warrior no-sells it, and now here comes the rest of nWo Hollywood to incite the schmozz and the end of the match. The beatdown doesn’t last long, as the ring fills with smoke and then Sting gets a baseball bat and hits a few underlings while Warrior punches Hogan at ringside. So, what was the point of the smoke, then? It served no purpose here, as it didn’t help the babyfaces escape or serve as a distraction. Everyone just stopped working for a few seconds while it dissipated, and then Sting grabbed a bat and came back into the ring. Look, this doesn’t deserve any more of my thought, so I’ll let it rest. WOW, A SHOW WITH THIS MUCH BISCHOFF ON IT OBVIOUSLY SHOULD GET SIX OUT OF FIVE STINGER SPLASHES!!!! HOW DID IT END UP GETTING -3 OUT OF 5 STINGER SPLASHES?!?!?!?!!! NO ONE MAY EVER SOLVE THIS STRANGE AND INEXPLICABLE SCORING MYSTERY!!!!!!!

The question is what is Warrior's best non-Rude/Savage/Hogan singles match? He's got the HTM and HHH squashes, both awesome and hilarious for totally different reasons. Then, uh, I'm drawing a blank. Nothing from Dallas, nothing else from WWF, and I don't think my upcoming re-watch of Hogan/Warrior at Havoc '98 is going to sway me to thinking that match will be any good. What people said about Goldberg back in the day is actually true of Warrior. He's completely, 100% presentation and spectacle. Which works sometimes! Spectacle is not the same as needing smoke-and-mirrors, IMO. Spectacle comes from within, and Warrior was good at spectacle. Warrior/Savage WM VII doesn't work unless Warrior shows that self-doubt and has to consult with the heavens to see if the warrior gods have spurned him. That is the sort of dumb shit that few wrestlers can pull off, but Warrior did it.

It's certainly the best of the trilogy, though unfortunately, it's not the match that Warrior needs at that point because no one thinks Rude is on his level. I wrote something about this match awhile back. I think probably Savage should have been Warrior's feud partner for SummerSlam and not Rude.

Hogan could definitely work. As late as 1996, when he was revitalized by the heel turn, he could still turn it up and go on PPV. I think Hogan/Piper at Starrcade, while not quite a miracle match, is a very good match, and that's heavily down to Hogan's performance. While I liked the Rude/Warrior trilogy much more than Technico, I do think he's spot on with his assessment of Warrior and Hogan.

I would posit that the sixth match that just misses the list, but that should get an honorable mention, should be Warrior/Savage at WM VII. That match is the ideal form of the WWE big match style to the point that I'd say it's the blueprint for every other big match that tried to give the culmination of a major story that came after it. You can draw a line from it to, say, "I'm sorry, I love you" or Austin shaking hands with Vince after aligning with him.

Which one? Hardcore Revolution or Anarchy Rulz? Warzone was bad, and so was Attitude, but I spent a lot of time with them, especially because Warzone was such a leap from the LJN WWF games that Acclaim was putting out.

Four hours into Rise of the Ronin, the game is just what I was looking for. It's ugly Ghost of Tsushima with enjoyable combat and hell, a glider, because why not. Every open world game post-BotW needs a glider (except GoT, I suppose). My wife was watching me play it. She actually enjoyed GoT (it's rare for her to enjoy watching me play a non-Nintendo, non-quirky indie game), but she immediately looked at this game and called it Dollar Tree Tsushima, if I remember her words correctly. She's not entirely wrong! It's fun stuff, though all the systems that I had to quickly learn in the first hour or so had me a little frustrated initially. I'm also probably four hours into Princess Peach Showtime! Whereas Ronin has a clear gameplay loop once you get into the open world, Showtime! feels disjointed. Fun for what it is, sure, but disjointed. I don't love that you can't skip talky parts of levels that you've already cleared if you've missed a shine or sparkle or whatever the star-shaped crystal things are called. So far, I've enjoyed Dashing Thief Peach and Cowgirl Peach the most. Cavalier Peach is hilarious to play after coming from Ronin because of the understandably wide dodge windows in Showtime! They're so wide it almost fucks me up a bit. On the other hand, Patisserie Peach and Detective Peach are the clear losers when it comes to Peach transformations. Maybe the later levels will do something fun with the, though. The opening levels for each are designed very simply for obvious reasons. I will say that the people at Good Feel had a blast animating Peach. At one point, she slides down a bannister instead of taking the stairs - great animation. At another point, she does a goofy victory dance next to an NPC. Again, great animation.

WrestleWar '92 notes: Wrestling in the background really helps me get work get done, strangely. Kinda like music without lyrics does, but weirdly I guess Tony S. or Jim Ross yammering on is somehow as soothing and focusing as Chopin or [insert random Youtuber who does lofi remixes of video game OSTs] here. There are four announcers for this show for some reason. Only two (Jesse and JR) get much burn, though. I can't believe anyone found the Freebirds to be cool and/or awesome as babyfaces. The off-beat clapping to their own music is shameful. Hayes and Garvin are always mega-heels in my house. They're wrestling Terry Taylor and Greg Valentine, so I'm pretty much in hell. The early spot with all the dropdowns was contrived, and it didn't get better for me from there. This is obviously not my kind of match. I thought Taylor won it with the Flying Steak Wrap, but no, the match unmercifully continued. After about fifteen years of "action," Garvin hooks Taylor, backdrops a charging Valentine, and drops Taylor with a DDT for the win and the U.S. Tag Championships. I think they're the penultimate champs, if I recall correctly. There really aren't enough tag teams in the company to carry these titles, especially considering that Watts is now running the show and will try to re-establish the NWA Tag Championships as well. Tracy Smothers/Johnny B. Badd is kind of a WCW-ass WCW matchup. Badd isn't any good(d) yet since it's still only 1992. Ventura thinks that the way Badd acts, he would like to wear a pretty dress, so Ross points out that Ventura liked to wear boas. Take that, tiny little box that people try to shove others into! Badd is quite over as a babyface with this crowd. There's a surprising amount of squeeing from the ladies. I am somewhat surprised that a bunch of Southern ladies are into Badd, who is both passing as black and is presented as, um, fluid of sexual orientation. I think it speaks to Mero's natural charisma that he's somehow over as a babyface in 1992 WCW with those characteristics. This match isn't very good, either - I am somewhat lower on Tracy Smothers than most DVDVR readers, I would guess. Smothers is a man of dualities. He hits a terrible, goofy double-thrust that he learned from the Stan Lane school of martial arts, but then he goes up top and hits a gorgeous diving back elbow. Whenever I see Smothers, he comes across as just a bit too goofy for me, specifically when he's not in a position where goofiness is called for. But at least this match is shorter, and the Kiss that Don't Miss is a nice worked punch, so I was ultimately okay with it. No, please don't let the Freebirds cut a victory promo. Aw, they let the Freebirds cut a victory promo. There is absolutely nothing likeable about Michael Hayes, and I am baffled that anyone would ever let him be a babyface. Honestly, even just Dok Hendrix hitting a WEEEEEELLLLLLL is a punchable offense. Raven vs. Buff Daddy Scotty Flamingo vs. Marcus Alexander Bagwell seems like it could be good because I am extremely high on Flamingo as a worker. I am less high on Bagwell, but it's okay. Ross and Jesse bickering on commentary is excellent because both guys are pretty quick thinkers and Ross can hang with Ventura. Flamingo and Bagwell just stand there and slap each other at one point, so that's cool. I think they do a decent job of making things feel a little heated. The rest of the match is a little boilerplate, and I'm not sure Bagwell was ever better than adequate as a singles worker, but I didn't hate it. Anyway, Flamingo cheats his way to a flash pinfall victory. JYD and Ron Simmons vs. Mr. Hughes and Cactus Jack is definitely a WCW-ass WCW matchup. JYD is physically cooked, so of course Cactus does whatever he has to do to make this match work. Or the pre-match, as it were, because before the bell even rings, Foley eats some punches, but runs the Dog into the side of the ramp and then drops a Cactus Elbow from the ramp to the concrete. It was as awesome as it reads. Dellinger's useless ass is out here. Sorry, there aren't any nWo members around to push through your ineffectively-led security, and you're not a paramedic, so hit the bricks, Dellinger. I think that's Chris Benoit out here working security, though, so maybe they'd actually be effective for once. The Dog gets led out and Ron Simmons wrestles this as a handicap match. Big Cat is worthless; could we not have just had JYD and Hughes second their partners, who are actually good workers in 1992, for a singles match instead? Even worse, this match actually is a singles match, but the officials decide that Hughes will be the one to wrestle it, with Foley on the outside. Come on, now. Well, at least Foley doesn't have to kill himself tonight. Simmons finagles a win by hitting a spinebuster, shoulderblocking an interfering Cactus, and then, um, clipping Hughes's knee for three. Simmons should have reversed the last and first moves in that sequence. Todd Champion vs. Super Invader is the epitome of a cooldown match. I really like Mid-South Hercules, but by this WCW run, he's not particularly good. After a lot of really dull work, Super Invader hits a powerbomb. Well, if they call Kevin Nash's Jackknife a "power drop," that's also what this Invader finishing move was. Ricky (excuse me, Richard) Morton vs. Big Josh is a confounding match in that I'm not sure why it would be on this show. I mean, it should be no worse than solid, but is this a PPV-quality matchup considering that we've also just seen Todd Champion vs. Super Invader? I guess it really is slim pickings for the WCW undercard. I always forget that '92 WCW took awhile to heat up. Still, this is pretty pacey, and Morton is able to control the match when he baits Josh into running and flying with him. It's too bad that Morton also does some bad, and occasionally immersion-breaking, arm work in there. When they're not running, things get positively dull. Josh eventually hits a sitdown splash for the win, but it's not even from the top rope or anything. It's so lame that it doesn't get a cool name like the top-rope version. Bombs Away? Cool. Whoopee Cushion? Cool. But this non-aerial version is called the Northern Exposure. I guess surreal-ish light dramas starring Janine Turner were hotter than I thought at this time. Brian Pillman is going to have to try and carry human melatonin supplement Tom Zenk to something fun next. Pillman got some gold and started to break bad, which is the story of this match. They do some uninspiring limb work. I get why it exists - so they can have heated exchanges in bursts to try and ramp up the intensity slowly until it ideally reaches a pitch, at which point Pillman does some scummy shit - but that doesn't mean it's worth watching [ed. note: They actually don't tell this story anyway, but at least the limb work was sort of sold eventually even if it didn't mean much]. Pillman does a ton of ineffective leg work that Zenk immediately ignores after Pillman finally misses a move. Wow, Pillman's bad at working a limb. The finishing run is decent enough, though. Zenk gets a close call or two and, hey, he sells the leg a bit. I guess Pillman's attack finally did some damage! Pillman takes a wild bump on a Zenk top-rope crossbody, but he kicks out at two. Pillman in general flops around like a fish out of water and bumps his way into something entertaining. Pillman dodges a Zenk missile dropkick and hits a quick bridge pin to eke out a three, no cheating necessary. The Steiner Brothers wrestle Tatsumi Fujinami and Takayuki Iizuka in a match that has a ton of promise. I can't even be mad at Scotty failing completely at doing his flipping powerslam on Fujinami early on. He's out here trying to do cool shit. This match is for the IWGP tag titles, by the way. Iizuka's aerial game is very pretty. This is just a bunch of dudes hitting dope offense and a few cool counters, is what it is. Iizuka is sporting a shiner and a bloody nose early. I mean, these fellas beat the ever-loving fuck out of one another. Did I ever mention that pro wrestling is great? It's funny because of course the EVIL FOREIGNER JAPANESE are supposed to be the bad guys or whatever, but IMO this match is worked in a way that makes them the sentimental favorites. The Steiners are as sympathetic as a pair of serial killers and Iizuka takes an ass-whipping and suffers through it to try and get a hot tag. I swear that I'm not just being a DVDVR contrarian here. Ventura is enjoying this on commentary, by the way. Fujinami boots Rick Steiner in the back of the head stiffly enough that he chuckles. At the point where Fujinami and Iizuka hit Scotty with a spike pikedriver, even I'm feeling physically fatigued. These dudes are killing one another; there's no way this match should go on much longer. And it doesn't! The Steiners take the titles after Rick belly-to-belly suplexes Iizuka off the top rope. It took a disconcerting amount of time to happen, but this was the first really good match of the show. Hey, it's time for War Games! Sting's Squadron (Sting, Nikita Koloff, Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes, and Ricky Steamboat) faces the Dangerous Alliance (Rick Rude, Steve Austin, Larry Zbyszko, Arn Anderson, and Bobby Eaton) in an all-time classic that I was inspired to watch again after the discussion of Steve Austin's best matches in the General Thread. Huh, everyone on the babyface side is still alive as of the time that I wrote this. Only Rude and Eaton have passed when it comes to all the workers in this thing. That's pretty damned good considering the match was 32 years ago. Bonus: Madusa and Heyman are also still alive and kicking. I thought War Games was supposed to be dangerous! (Just kidding.) Anyway, let's run it down: Barry Windham [SS1] and Steve Austin [DA1] begin the match. Now, you're not going to believe this, but Windham does a solid job of staying on top during the opening period, and his basic control over the match only ends because the heels win the coin toss. Austin is out here bumping wildly, desperately trying to convince someone out here that he's a long-term main eventer. Now, Austin starts bleeding about four minutes in after Windham launches him into the cage, and I see Austin surreptitiously blade and wonder why the heck Bret Hart made up the whole deal that Austin needed Bret to help gig him during the WM 13 match in the Hitman's book. As soon as I read that, it didn't sound right. That's because there's no way it's right. Windham bites Austin's bleeding wound. It's fucking gross. Also, it's the best. Tails never fails, and neither does the heel team in the coin toss of a War Games, so Rick Rude [DA2] is next to enter the match. This is a one-on-one match for a little while because Austin got his ass entirely beat during the opening five-minute period, but Austin finally makes his way up and helps Rude work Windham over. From a kayfabe perspective, would you rather have the advantage of the man advantage for four periods, or would you rather have the freshest man come in at the point where you can end the match entirely in the Match Beyond? I think it's probably better to lose the toss because wrestlers get second and third winds through the course of a match all the time, but having a fresh guy come in after everyone is bleeding and has used up their third wind, and when you can end the match with a submission immediately, seems like it's the most advantageous position to be in. Anyway, Ricky Steamboat [SS2] comes in and just cleans house to a mega-pop. Steamboat's out here DDT'ing dudes, that's how intense he is. Steamboat beats Rude's ass in the second ring, but Arn Anderson [DA3] is next in. Arn DDT's Windham, and then absolutely buries Steamboat on a spinebuster. Arn and Rude grab a leg apiece and put on a double Boston Crab, which is a cool move, man, that was neat. Austin looks like his forehead exploded. Rude hits Steamboat with a piledriver. Then, Rude tosses Steamboat over both sets of ropes and into the other ring. It's madness, basically. Dustin Rhodes [SS3] comes in at the next period and goes right at Arn. Austin tries to help, but he's been half-murdered and is little resistance. Dustin goes to help his partners in the other ring, but he sees that Steamboat has Rude in a Boston Crab and goes right back over to Austin and tries to pretty much end the guy. Windham chokes Anderson by putting Arn's head between the rings and pushing. You don't need me to tell you this, but this is the absolute best. Larry Z. [DA4] is next in, but Dustin is still fresh, so he meets the guy and beats the hell out of him. Madusa is entirely pressed about this, so - and bear with me, this is some WILD shit - she climbs the cell, which bends like Mick Foley and the Undertaker are standing on top of it, and drops Heyman's brick of a cell phone down to Arn so that Arn can clock Dustin with it and get the Rhodes boy to settle down, finally. Sting climbs up there and confronts Madusa, and the crowd loses their minds while Arn beats the shit out of everyone not in the Dangerous Alliance with the phone. Barry Windham has popped a gusher now. Rick Rude tries to tear Ricky Steamboat's nose off his face. Pro wrestling continues to be pretty great. Needing a big turnaround, Sting [SS4] enters the ring to try and turn the tide of the match once again. Sting's supposed to be maybe working a rib injury, but the man gorilla presses Rude into the top of the cage like ten times, so I think he's healed. Sting absolutely destroys everyone. It rules hard. Arn's bleeding now. Actually, it might be easier to note who isn't bleeding. Bobby Eaton [DA5] is the last man in for the Alliance, which is good for Rude because Sting and Steamboat do the apron choke thing to Rude, but they also pull on his legs and try to tear the poor bastard's nutsack in half. Everyone is tired enough that Eaton is a major force immediately. As time ticks down until the Match Beyond starts, Larry Z. and Rick Rude work on one of the buckle cables in one of the rings. This, of course, is going to turn out poorly for them. But in the meantime, they are dominating until Nikita Koloff [SS5] comes in and, contrary to any concerns that he wouldn't play nice with the champ, crushes Arn and then helps Sting up. Koloff saves Sting from an attack and then they high five, and the crowd pops huge while they beat down Arn and Austin. Now squarely in the Match Beyond, Sting hits Arn with a Stinger Splash and locks on a Scorpion Deathlock, but Arn hangs on until Eaton can save him. Eaton then goes after the broken turnbuckle to try and wrench it free. In the other ring, Rhodes tries to end the match with a leveraged Figure Four on Larry Z., but Rude is able to slip past Koloff and break that up. See, Koloff is very fresh and basically gives the Squadron a big advantage. However, he's a non-factor in the other ring when Eaton and Larry Z. try to sync up on a weapon attack. Larry Z. uses the steel pole to try and hit Sting, but Sting moves and Larry hits Eaton right in the arm. Sting jumps on Eaton, applies an armbar to multiply the damage, and gets a quick submission for the win. Paul E. is irate at Larry Z., but look, it was war. Sometimes you get caught by friendly fire. Now, that main event was magnificent. This is a two match show, but those were two pretty, pretty, prett-ay good matches.

I'd prefer Fake Razor and Diesel to have acted like they hit a time warp and had regressed back to what they were doing when they came into the company in '92/'93. Fake Razor tries to start beef with Mr. Perfect again and claims that he must have run Randy Savage out of the WWF since Savage isn't around anymore. Then he takes a "shocking" (only to him) loss to Aldo Montoya on a random RAW, Vince pipes in some "1-2-3" chants, and Montoya is re-named the 1-2-3 Man ('o War) and becomes friends with Fake Razor by having defeated him. Fake Diesel keeps trying to be Shawn Michaels's bodyguard even though Michaels is annoyed by him until one night, an irritated Michaels tells Fake Diesel to "take the night off" and Fake Diesel powerbombs him in response. Bonus points if it happens at Survivor Series 1996 and, in a bit of poetry, allows Sid to capture the WWF Championship rather than the spot with Jose Lothario having a heart attack.

I do love some FirePro feel, yeah. I've started a quest to (re-)build my N64 collection. I don't need everything - I don't like OoT enough to spend a lot of money on a physical copy - but I am going to get all the wrestling games that got stateside releases. And I've never played WCW Backstage Blast, but as someone who is writing about late-stage WCW, I am looking forward to hating it. On another note, this No Mercy mod looks insane. The mod community in general has done some great work with No Mercy, but this is especially impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOMAog5eotw

Most of those posts were truthful, but I do not condone the unnecessary DDP slander.

Thunder Interlude – show number thirty-five – 8 October 1998 "The WCW Gang is infected with the sick that is Nitro’s awful featured feuds” Tony S. tells me that we’re still seventeen days’ worth of shows away from Havoc…My goodness…Chucky starts laughing over the P.A. system, likely at my distress and pain…Tony S. says that Mike Tenay, roving reporter, is off finding Scott Hall at some bar in the area to talk to him…Stevie Ray/Lex Luger is hyped as the main event…I didn’t realize before this re-watch just how fucking awful late ’98 WCW was…People focus on the terribleness of ’99 (for obvious reasons) and ’00 (fair, but there’s some of that stuff that I do remember liking, especially in the back half of the year or so)…’98 WCW heads south about July and is truly awful by September…Staggeringly terrible wrestling programming on their parts… Mike T. interviews a (possibly?) sauced Scott Hall…Hall invites Kevin Nash down for a beer or maybe a punch up…All I can say about this segment is that I could go for a Rolling Rock in a bottle right about now…Rolling Rock and Heineken were the finer beers that we’d drink in college…You know, compared to the complete trash we’d drink because it was the dirt cheapest…I’m not arguing that Rolling Rock and Heineken are great, but they are two levels above the most widely available and cheapest beers IMO and maybe YMO if you enjoy an occasional brew…We see a limo purportedly belonging to Kevin Nash racing away from the arena, presumably to meet Hall at the bar… Kanyon (by himself) opens the wrestling action for tonight…He doesn’t get the right response from the fans to his question w/r/t who is better than him…He’s frustrated about it even though he keeps feeding the crowd the correct answer beforehand…Hey, it’s Prince Iaukea…I expect something decent out of this matchup…I was right, it’s fun stuff…Iaukea busts out a wheel kick and hits a senton body press early on…Kanyon ducks a punch, sits Iaukea up top, and lands a hanging neckbreaker…Iaukea is sporting a small ponytail, and Kanyon keeps using it to help him get Iaukea positioned for moves…Heenan tries twice to set up a dumb punchline, but he really didn’t have to…He’s worse than Lee Marshall out here…My man Bobby the Brain is going out sad…Kanyon scores a series of two counts…Iaukea makes a nice comeback and scores 2.9 off a springboard somersault senton…That’s as close as he gets, as Kanyon drops him with a Flatliner for three shortly after…Fun stuff… Chris Jericho takes the chance to challenge Goldberg since Goldberg’s not in the arena tonight…He bangs on a door looking for the champ…He’s hastily added a “2” to his t-shirt listing out his “wins” over Goldberg so far…If you’re good enough at heeling, you can make me believe that you believe that running away from the ring while Goldberg kills your bodyguards somehow equals a victory…I am certain that this incarnation of Chris Jericho believes this with all his heart… We get the Scott Steiner black-and-white promo against brother Ricky that played on Nitro…Scotty makes his way to the ring with Buff Bagwell backing him up after the video is over…Buff grabs the mic, shares his hatred for the state of Indiana (reasonable), and promises that the Steiner Brothers will not have their match at Havoc because Scotty is out of shape (not reasonable)…Scotty gets the mic and tells Buff that he needs to put a (metaphorical) leash on his mom…Buff doesn’t like this…Scotty threatens to slap Buff if Buff gets physical with him…Buff blames Scotty for blowing up this whole Ricky Steiner feud…Scotty tells Buff to learn how to control a woman or he’s not nWo material…Buff ditches Scotty in response…I assume it’s all another ruse… This video package for the WCW Mastercard launch on Wall Street uses the Hardy Boys' WWF theme…Oh yeah, the ‘90s were full of licensed wrestling crap…What a time to be alive… Meng disappeared from TV for a minute after inexplicably letting Goldberg out of the TDG…He squashes Jerry Flynn, who gets a jobber entrance…Flynn hits a nice flying clothesline for less than one, but he’s got no shot…Flynn tries some more kicks, but Meng walks through them and locks in a TDG for the win… Jericho and Ralphus (w/2x4) stands in the parking lot pretending to want a fight with Goldberg tonight… After the break, Chris Adams comes to the ring and sees Meng still out there; the feared Tongan is bored after what was an easy victory…Meng wants to fight Adams and eventually catches Adams as Adams gets in the ring…We get another TDG…They’re really trying all sorts of stuff to vary these show segments over the past couple of shows…OOOH, Wrath comes down…He was supposed to wrestle Adams…Wrath gets in Meng’s face…They brawl, and I’m into it…There’s a bad chairshot spot where Wrath doesn’t want to hit Meng in the head, so he catches his initial chair swing and pauses in order for Meng to bend over and show his back…It’s okay, though, this is still exciting stuff…And there’s no need for chairshots to the head just to make things look smoother… Some cops issue a restraining order to Ric Flair and Arn Anderson outside the arena…This angle stinks…It’s because Bischoff is involved with some legalese-type shit when what everyone wants to see is the Four Horsemen in the ring fighting actual wrestlers in nWo Hollywood… El Dandy makes a WCW appearance…Hey, it’s Tokyo Magnum!...I dig this guy…They,ve dropped the Boogie Knights as a going concern (for now), and it’s too bad because I thought Magnum trying to win their approval had great potential as a midcard angle…Magnum and Dandy trade a series of two counts off flash pinfall attempts…Tony S., in talking about weight classes for this belt, basically calls Dandy fat…Tony S. also basically called himself fat on Nitro…Tony, don’t be so weight conscious…Chucky starts laughing in the middle of this match, which is the sort of disrespectful nonsense toward two professionals that you’d expect from a doll inhabited with the soul of a serial killer…Tony S. continues to freak out about not knowing whose voice this is…OK, then after that, Scott Norton comes down and powerbombs both guys…Fuck off, WCW…Thanks for letting us all know that neither of these guys matter… After the break, Eddy Guerrero comes out and recruits Dandy into the lWo by blaming Eric Bischoff for Norton’s attack…There’s a lot of garbage angles going on in this company, so this use of Eddy Guerrero coming off the amazing feud with Chavo is floating under the radar a bit…Creative has absolutely fallen apart…Eddy is supposed to be crapping on heel Bischoff with this, but these very non-Latin American crowds aren’t exactly fired up to cheer for a group centered around Mexican wrestlers that explicitly is portrayed as an ethnic Latin stable…Do Bisch and Sullivan not understand their base audience?... Tony S. tells us Mark Curtis is very sick…Both Curtis and Pee-Wee Anderson would pass away in the next four or so years from this show’s original airing…That is sad, man…Saturn comes to the ring to face that supreme scallywag of the Seven Seas, Scott Putski…Saturn doesn’t have much issue with Putski to start…He scores a nice superkick…Putski fires back and lariats Saturn to the floor…Putski is really sort of dull outside of the jacket, tights, and ostentatious Jesus piece…Saturn avoids a sleeper with a jawbreaker, then mows Putski down…Saturn lands a GORGEOUS top-rope splash for two…Putski gets a floatover powerslam for two of his own, kicks out of a flash pin attempt at two, and then keeps control until he whiffs badly on a corner charge…Saturn hits a Falcon Arrow and rings Putski up with a DVD for the win…You know, Saturn came out of that Raven feud hot…If only he had something to do, like maybe engage in a feud for a secondary title…Like the United States Championship, which sure would be a useful tool for continuing a guy’s elevation if it weren’t around Bret Hart’s waist for no good fucking reason… Too much crappy Nitro angle garbage has leaked into this Thunder…Now the Disciple comes to the ring and is allowed to talk…Why?...He reiterates that he can stand on his own (or with some friends, he’s not too picky, I guess)…This dude says that Hulk got a few chumps employment in WCW even though they're a waste of roster space…I think he’s going to finally admit that he's a fucking fraud, but no, he calls out Horace, who I’d much rather watch than Ed fucking Leslie…This guy Disciple won’t shut the fuck up…Just get Horace out here and have Horace kill Disciple off in sixty seconds or fewer…Oops, no, Horace runs out and struggles badly against Disciple…Horace finally gets in some offense which Disciple no-sells before hitting a Stone Cold Stunner for an easy three…MINUS FIVE STARS…Horace was actually a useful piece of the Flock…He wasn’t the best wrestler ever, but he worked hard and did some fun stuff on television…He attacks Disciple post-match to get some heat back, but this was a really dumb use of him… Tony S. interviews Chris Jericho in the ring…Even Jericho’s not too big a heel to wish Brian Hildebrand well…Jericho promises to beat down Goldberg tonight even though Tony S. has made it clear that the WCW World Champion isn’t in the building…Goldberg’s music hits and no one comes out…Jericho demands that Nick Patrick count Goldberg out…Jericho celebrates his third-straight win over Goldberg…None of these wins are official or go in the record books as wins, but you know what, Jericho seems pretty pleased with them all the same… I am reminded of the Sting/Hitman rip-off main event from Nitro because Lee Marshall insists on narrating stills of said rip-off main event…Tony S. is still in the ring, and he introduces Bret Hart for an interview…Bret Hart being badly booked and completely wasted is shitty, yeah, but this booking committee and the executive producer who oversees it seem intent on badly booking and wasting as many people as possible…Bret challenges Sting to a match for the U.S. Championship at Halloween Havoc…OK, that match sounds amazing, but maybe can we take the title off the Hitman next Nitro so we can free that up for a couple of guys who need it?... This Four Horsemen hype video is great, but what if they actually wrestled instead of standing around and getting kicked out of arenas?...Dean Malenko is allowed in the arena tonight, I suppose to wrestle?...The rest of the Horsemen are banned (I guess Mongo and Benoit were too, but I don’t care enough to go back and watch that segment)…Nope, wait, they sent Malenko out here to talk…What the fuck?...Why not let Mongo talk then as he’s a clearly better talker than either Benoit or Malenko?...Malenko doesn’t fit the Four Horsemen because he’s boring and has zero style…Malenko does a sit-in, demanding a match…Eric Bischoff walks out and books him against Barbarian…Fine, I see why they sent him out here…And at least Malenko didn’t talk for too long…Bisch offers Barb a million bucks to injure Malenko…Minus Jimmy Hart’s forty percent commission, of course… Oh great, Bisch joins commentary to yap about how he set Malenko up…Bisch talks about how long his contract runs and says he’ll be around for a long time…Meanwhile, I desperately calculate how many more shows I have to wade through until September of 1999…Malenko takes a beating, but takes out Barb’s wheels and locks on the Texas Cloverleaf…Malenko coaxes Barb to tap out, and in an admittedly funny visual, Bischoff gets up and yells NO NO NO NO NO NO NO while whapping Tony S. in the head with his booking papers on each NO…Well, even guys who absolutely SUCK as on-TV authority figures can do something entertaining every once in awhile, I suppose…Though Bischoff as a scumbag, used-car-salesman type of authority figure on WWE television was actually very good…If WWE authority figure Bischoff were transported to 1998, I wouldn’t mind him getting all this mic time… Raven comes to the ring, sits down in the corner, and talks about his unhappy childhood…He notes that his mother told him that he was a zero of a human being at the tender age of eight…He says his ma told him exactly this: “You’re just a cinder in the furnace of the damned”…I have to tell you, that is way more hurtful and abusive than Judy Bagwell slapping Buff…Raven compares himself to DDP and notes that even though he fought his way through a sad life, Page is the guy that gets all the breaks…What about him?...What about Raven?!...Page cuts in and decides to fight Raven right then and there…Raven jumps Page as Page slides into the ring…This might be a wild thing to say, and I have no idea if it is or if it’s something that fans mainstream see as a reasonable position, but I think Raven is Page’s best career opponent…Even though they had that cage match blow-off earlier this year that underwhelmed (largely because of the overbooking), they are still an awesome feud pairing overall and brightened up 1998 WCW considerably when they worked together… Page tries a Diamond Cutter, but Raven slips out of it and boots Page in the sack…Raven takes over and cuts off Page at every turn…He hits Page with a side Russian into the guardrail…Raven grabs a chair, but gets caught when he tries to post Page’s nuts and pulled into the post himself…Raven recovers quickly and lands a drop toehold into the chair…Lodi comes out and stands on the apron, which distracts Raven as Raven tries to land an Evenflow…That allows Page to push Raven into Lodi and then use the chair to bonk Raven in the face…A DDP lariat gets two…Raven back elbows himself out of back suplex position, but Page holds on and hits a belly-to-belly for two…This is a great fight, man, it rules…Raven locks on a sleeper after some more back-and-forth…Page breaks it with an elbow, then as both men fight over a backslide, he slips out and lands a Diamond Cutter for three…I get that Raven’s not a guy you build the company around, but he’s a guy you keep as a gatekeeper…I apologize for bringing this back up, but Raven’s a guy who would be better positioned as the heel secondary singles champ right now… I have no idea why Lex Luger and Stevie Ray get the Michael Buffer Special, but okay…Tony S. hypes a movie star being at Nitro…How about if you hype me with a handful of decent matchups and fewer bad angles instead?...Lex Luger might as well be invisible at this point…Not every guy can be the focal point all the time, but Luger was way, way over…Now, he’s just a guy…If this company pushed the Wolfpac as a threat better, he’d be fine, but it didn't, so he’s badly underused…There’s not much to say about the match itself…Luger goes for a Torture Rack, but Scott Hall runs in…I sure hope he didn’t drive himself here…I did wonder how they were going to pay off Nash leaving to find Hall…OK, so it was a set-up to get Nash away from the building, but where are Konnan and Sting?...They said Sting was in the hospital, but so was Bret, and Bret made it to Indianapolis to talk...Stevie whaps Luger in the head with the slapjack, and then Konnan runs out both a) late and b) alone and gets beaten up…The booking for the Wolfpac is criminal… This show was bad, but as with the previous Nitro, Raven and DDP are part of a small group of people (Wrath, Meng, Kanyon, and Iaukea included) that kept watching this show from feeling like I’d hit my thumb with a hammer…By the barest of margins, it’s a WOO…

Austin/Rhodes best of three falls at Starrcade and Sting's Squadron vs. Dangerous Alliance War Games would be on that top ten list for me.

Everyone says it so often it's cliche, but nothing really has recaptured the pacing, cadence, and meaty weight of movies like AKI's WCW and WWF games. I had to go get a new HDMI/USB combo cord to get the N64 to work on my modern television, but it was worth it. These games still feel incredible to play. So did Def Jam Vendetta and Fight For New York. AKI just had insane fighting/wrestling game talent. I'm not sure any stateside wrestling game has made me feel like I can break down an opponent through targeting like the AKIs. I'm glad that I didn't settle for emulating them on my PC this time around and busted out the carts.

SCSA hot take incoming: He and Kurt Angle had their career best match against one another at SummerSlam '01. Most people prefer Bret/Austin at WM 13 for Austin, and lots of folks prefer Benoit/Angle at the '03 Rumble, which is why I think this classified as a hot take.

Show #160 – 5 October 1998 "The one where WCW Nitro tries to be like WWF RAW even though Vince Russo isn't involved in booking or formatting the show" Sting and Bret Hart are feuding now. Unfortunately, they’re doing it under the least interesting circumstances possible, and somehow Hulk Hogan jammed himself into the middle of this whole deal. Eric Bischoff didn’t even have the decency to silo Hogan and Warrior off into their own universe so the rest of the show could breathe. Tony S., after a video recap of all this garbage, says that, “[Bret's turn] will go down as one of the most shocking moments” and come on, this was one of the most telegraphed turns ever. Poor Tony S., having to hype this crap and sound like an idiot. Nitro Girls routine. Halloween Havoc promo. Fireworks. Commentary desk chatter. Confusion about Chucky cackling like an idiot. Bret Hart vs. Sting for the United States Championship - do any of you remember that this title even exists? – will happen later tonight. Somehow, I doubt it’ll have an ending that is even remotely un-clusterfucky. Video of Roddy Piper cutting a crappy promo about/to Bret Hart from a few Nitros back. More video recaps of this Hogan/Hart/Sting stuff that happened in past weeks. Enough! This has been completely uncompelling television! Show intro. Finally. That all took seven-and-a-half minutes, but it felt like seven-and-a-half hours. Lizmark Jr. comes to the ring to face Saturn in the opener. At least the opener will probably be decent. A dude in the crowd holds up a sign with red facepaint Sting next to white facepaint Sting. Red Facepaint Sting is, quite sensibly, crossed out. Stingiagree.gif. This match is fine. Lizmark is having a strange night: He takes a weird, overelaborate bump off a superkick, then so badly telegraphs a corner splash that it looks comical. Saturn scores a Falcon Arrow after that missed corner splash and wins in only a couple of minutes with the DVD (no Video Review). DDP/Goldberg hype video. This feud is so good and should get somewhat more time than it’s gotten, but it’s been crowded out by the awful nWo-adjacent stuff. Speaking off, Warrior/Hogan hype stuff is grafted onto the second half of this hype video. Nitro Girls routine. Kimberly’s a charming and pretty lady, but what if we got some pro wrestling on this here pro wrestling show instead of a second Nitro Girls routine in the first fifteen minutes of the show? Kaz Hayashi has, I guess, accepted Sonny Onoo’s tutelage at what I’m sure is a step managerial fee. That must have happened on SN. They come to the ring together; Kaz is opposing Ernest Miller, who is still repping what is now an overlong gimmick that should have been squashed by Goldberg two weeks ago. Miller does his same heel routine. It stinks. I guess Kaz has no idea what the fuck is going on, and Onoo doesn’t help him at all by translating or anything, because he just stands there while the Cat counts, takes off his robe, and then kicks him right in the chest. Onoo is the anti-James Vandenberg. This match has a cap on it in quality, obviously. The Cat does a relatively long pressure hold on Kaz’s ribs. Kaz has some bursts, but leaps off the top rope and right into a leaping kick counter. Oops, no, the timing is horrid and it looks awful. The Cat has terrible timing at this point and should probably stop it with all the kick counter spots that need good timing to pull off for awhile. Miller hits a Feliner after that for the win; Onoo gets in the ring and immediately dumps Kaz for Miller. Seems about right. There are lots of hype videos tonight. This is not a complaint; it is merely an observation. DDP gets a cool little video package of him dropping fools with Diamond Cutters even though his ribs are taped because of kayfabe injuries a whole bunch of the time. The man’s a fighter! Jerry Flynn and Juventud Guerrera are next up, and I know that Juvi is on his way out here because his music plays for a few seconds while Flynn is still on the ramp. Dammit, Leathers! We don’t get into this match at all before Disco comes out and boots Tenay off the desk. Disco verbally shits on Juvi. Also, Disco calls himself “slim in the waist and cute in the face.” This guy cracks me up. Hahaha, Disco claims that Juvi is used to the metric system and miscalculated Disco’s weight in pounds. What a dumbass. In the ring, Juvi and Flynn have a surprisingly decent little man/big man match. I never would have guessed that these two have some solid chemistry. I’m honestly somewhat shocked at how fun this nothing little match is, which ends with Juvi winning a series of counters by backflipping out of a back suplex attempt and drilling a Juvi Driver for three. Huh. I think this reaches "charming uniquity" status. In a pre-tape, Mike Tenay asks the humanoids outside the arena who will win the Goldberg/DDP match at Havoc. A woman wearing a DDP shirt is brave enough to pick DDP when everyone else picks Goldberg. But in an illustration of the thin line between bravery and stupidity, she then holds up a sign which exhorts Hulk Hogan to shake his dick at her. I did not make this up. God knows that I wish I had. The desk talks about Hogan/Warrior. A Hogan/Warrior hype video plays. Did I mention that there are lots of hype videos tonight? Wrath crushes the fifth Villano in a quick squash. I’ll tell you, Wrath and Crush both have some excellent tilt-a-whirl backbreakers. Wrath’s Meltdown looks great tonight. Another Warrior/Hogan video package plays. Then, we cut to more pre-tape of Tenay yammering at the humanoids. I must credit one fan who predicts DDP countering a Jackhammer attempt by slipping out of the back and hitting a Diamond Cutter because he’s seen himself a wrestling show or two. This group of fans seemed comparatively savvy about pro wrestling, how to cut a faux-promo while yelling catchphrases, and also none of them begged Hulk Hogan to shake his dick at them. So that’s a plus. An incredibly tacky Hummer limo pulls up to the arena. Of course the Wolfpac are in it. Of course. They pop out and we get a tracking shot as they walk from the limo all the way into the arena and, uh, as they wander around trying to find the nWo locker room; we stick with it until they find a few B-Teamers backstage and kick the shit out of them. Dellinger and the fuzz show up and stumble around ineffectually; the Giant and Scott Steiner show up and don’t do much. I respect the Wolfpac moving like an actual wolfpack for once, I have to say. This is a lukewarm backstage brawl. This thing goes on forever, man, forever. The fans in Columbia appear entertained by what they’re seeing on the big screen, though. Sting finally finds the room Bret’s in and ambushes him. Dellinger and the LEOs try to break it up as we go to commercial. We come back and this thing is still going. Sting hijacks a forklift and then rams it into nWo Hollywood's non-Hummer limo. In what is pretty boring TV, but which must have been fun for Sting, Sting picks up the limo with the forklift and then dumps it over on its hood. In fairness, once Sting drops it, that’s fun to watch. I'm a man and therefore enjoy watching cars getting crushed or dropped. It's science. Nash was using a sledgehammer (™Triple H) to hit the limo from beneath while Sting had it in the air, which seems like an inadvisable thing to do! Damian 666 shouldn’t have a ‘90s pop theme, I don’t think, but hey, this is WCW and they had it in the licensed music catalog they have access to. Damian faces Hector Garza. This match starts out shading slightly more toward “tumbling competition” than “simulation of an actual fight,” but it only lasts a minute because Eddy Guerrero cuts in with a mic and basically pitches these dudes on the lWo as a way to get back at Eric Bischoff booking anyone with Mexican heritage into the ground. Eddy whines about Bisch and Hogan controlling the money and the main event spots and then proposes that he and the other Latino WCW wrestlers band up in the lWo, complete with an lWo shirt that has a logo in the colors of the Mexican national flag. Damian and Garza join up immediately. This is our third “[Something] World Order” group in the fucking company, by the way. Mike Tenay tries to sneak into a Wolfpac huddle backstage, then interviews Kevin Nash, who plans to run up into a few local-area bars until they find Scott Hall so they can beat the fuck out of him. Tenay hopes to bring a cameraman and tag along on this fantastic voyage. More Bret Hart/Sting recap, specifically with a snippet of a Hart promo from a couple weeks ago. It only lasts a few seconds, at least. The Nitro Girls dance. Psicosis heads to the ring after this latest dance routine and faces off with Billy Kidman for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. Psicosis tries to intimidate Kidman, which fails, and then tries to work the arm, but that fails too, as Kidman works out of the hold and hits an armdrag, then follows up with a release overhead suplex for two. Kidman hits a plancha to Psicosis after Psicosis heads outside; he rolls Psicosis back in the ring and brings himself back in with a guillotine legdrop for another two count. He tries to follow up, but ducks down and gets caught and Falcon Arrow’d for two. Hey, that’s the second Falcon Arrow of the night. Psicosis celebrates and clowns and doesn’t seem to be taking Kidman very seriously, but he still scores a top rope wheel kick. This only gets two, but man, is Psicosis consistently casual about staying on top of Kidman. Psicosis goes to the chinlock. Kidman doesn’t take too long to work his way out of it, and he manages a dropkick. They trade counters once they’re back to standing, and Psicosis hits a wild guillotine legdrop from the ring to Kidman laying on the protective mats below. Psicosis sure loves pulverizing his spinal column. Psicosis beats Kidman up outside the ring, then back inside the ring, but he is so distracted tonight. He bitches at Charles Robinson, yells at the refs, and gives Kidman plenty of time to recover and score a counter lariat for two. Kidman tries to follow up, but misses a corner splash and gets back suplexed for a two count himself. Psicosis is on top, so he goes back to the chinlock. It’s not a very good looking chinlock. Kidman is out of it again and hits a sunset flip for two, but Psicosis is up and hits a lariat of his own. Psicosis follows up with a piledriver. Oops, no, he jaws at the fans and goes back to the chinlock. But, as unfocused as Psicosis is, he makes his biggest mistake by standing with Kidman and trying to powerbomb him. Kidman counters with a facebuster. Both men trade two counts after this, with Kidman’s 2.9 on the sit-out slam getting the closest to ending the match. Psicosis tries to hit a top-rope rana, but Kidman holds onto the ropes and then, as the crowd volume rises expectantly, lands an SSP for three. No, he doesn’t have good aim. But yes, the crowd loves the hell out of that move. This match was fine, but they have better in them. We get a pre-taped Warrior promo. He talks about giving Hogan that work at WrestleMania VI. In a weird bit of theming in this promo, Warrior mentions the famous Santayana phrase about people who don’t remember history being doomed to repeat it. Then, his promo argues that Hogan clearly remembers losing at WrestleMania. Doesn’t that mean, implicitly, that Hogan is less likely to repeat history and more likely to overcome Warrior at Havoc, then? I’m probably nitpicking. This pre-taped promo is too long, but there are parts of it that are actually decent, like when he says that he sleeps easily at night because he’s haunting Hogan’s dreams at the same time. He doesn’t say it that way exactly – he's a bit more wordy - but it's not a bad line. There was a lot of nonsense to get to that line, though. Scott Steiner cuts a pre-taped promo on Rick Steiner with the B-Team theme playing in the background. Scotty pretty much says that he carried the team for years. It’s a decent enough promo. Mike Tenay drives behind a Hummer limo. It’s exciting. You know, if you’ve never seen someone driving behind another car. I think they’re playing with the formatting of the show here and trying to hit the high notes that Attitude Era WWF hit with stuff like Steve Austin riding trucks into the arena and spraying dudes with beer. It’s not working for me, really, but it’s a moderately interesting attempt. Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell come to the ring. Scotty hits the line BIG POPPA PUMP IS YOUR HOOKUP, HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME, which is a good sign. Scotty re-hashes the promo he just gave in the pre-tape. Rick Steiner rolls out onto the ramp to rebut. Ricky’s so unsympathetic. Who gives a shit about this dude at all? You can’t get any heat on him because of how unsympathetic he is. Ricky is upset about Buff playing on his past injury; he’s so upset that he calls out Buff’s mom Judy. Judy takes the mic and gets in the ring like she pulled a switch off a plant outside and is going to whoop Buff’s Marcus’s ass. The crowd cheers appreciatively. Judy cuts a diabolical, screechy promo that Vickie Guerrero would be proud of. Then, like any Southern mom worth her salt, she guilts her son for not even calling her anymore, what the fuck, Marcus?! Buff takes the mic and tries to assert himself against his overbearing helicopter mom. Then he says that he makes the money that keeps his family housed, clothed, and fed. That is a mistake because, like any Southern mom worth her salt, Judy slaps the shit out of her disrespectful child. Look, you might be horrified at the babyface mother repeating an instance of child abuse against her son in his adulthood, but this is the south. Judy gets a massive pop. Also, I popped. Don’t judge me too harshly. Judy drags Buff away from the ring by his earlobe to loud cheers while Rick jumps Scott. During the break, Crush helped Scotty turn the tide, and they beat Ricky down. Scotty throws up the double birds while Ricky writhes in pain after getting tossed into a guardrail. Yeah, I’m sure Bischoff didn’t have an eye on what RAW was doing. I fucking bet. Crush versus Rick Steiner is the match that was next before Scotty and Buff crashed the proceedings, and that match goes on right now while J.J. Dillon comes to ringside and gets cops to escort Scotty away from ringside. Crush works a chinlock, hits Ricky with a big boot, eventually drops him with a piledriver, and casually covers for 2.9. I mean, wow, this Crush control segment goes on for about fifty years. I don’t even think it’s bad on an aesthetic level, necessarily; it’s just that Crush is so fucking boring. Finally, Ricky makes a comeback and lands the top-rope bulldog for three. The crowd was into the finish. I think what we’ve learned from this segment is that the crowd wants Judy to use corporal punishment on her adult manchild fuck-up of a son, and that they really dig the top-rope bulldog. The Wolfpac stalk Scott Hall at one of Hall’s favorite Columbia, SC haunts. See, this is straight out of the late ‘90s WWF playbook to run a series of segments like this where a story is told outside of the ring area, or outside of the arena itself, building toward a final confrontation and/or punchline. Anyway, they don’t find him at this spot, so they move on to the next one. Eric Bischoff escorts Hulk Hogan to the ring. David Flair is in the front row so that Eric Bischoff can taunt him. Hogan cuts a promo. It’s a fucking bummer. He cuts a far worse promo against Warrior than Warrior did in the pre-tape against him. I can scarcely believe it, but Warrior has been a consistently better promo than Hogan in this feud. I’m not saying Warrior is good at promos or even average, but he’s better than Hogan. The Four Horsemen are the next to get hyped via video package. Then the Nitro Girls dance. After that, Kanyon comes out, flanked by Raven. DDP comes to the ring to face his fellow Jersey scumbag. Someone holds up an EDGE STEALS MOVES sign. Edge stinks on ice, but everyone steals moves, man. Page gets a couple of flash pinfall attempts after Kanyon focuses on taunting the crowd instead of facing off with his opponent. That puts Kanyon out of sorts as he struggles to get going in the match. Page gets two on a big belly-to-belly, then sends Kanyon tumbling outside with a wild haymaker. Lodi comes out here begging Raven to take him back, which distracts Kanyon and allows Page to leap onto both of them. The whole kerfuffle distracts the ref enough that he leaves the ring; this allows Raven to hop in and hit Page with a shitty Diamond Cutter, but that only gets 2.9 when Kanyon gets back in the ring to cover (and Charles Robinson gets back in the ring to count). Kanyon chokes Page, then lands a second-rope Rocker Dropper. Kanyon is just too distracted, though; he celebrates and gets ambushed by Page strikes before landing a well-aimed kick to the ribs and a second-rope facebuster for two. Kanyon sinks in a chinlock, but that doesn’t last long; Kanyon gets to standing and puts Page in TKO position, but Page slinks out, and both men trade counters until finally Page scores a counter-clothesline that induces a standing ten-count. Or, uh, kneeling ten-count from Lil’ Naitch. Both men are up around seven, and Page wins a punch-up and bashes Kanyon’s head into the buckles; he then lands a back suplex for two. Page picks Kanyon back up, but Kanyon grabs him and gets two off a desperation small package. It’s not a bad move, but Page is up, out, and back on top with a DDPancake that gets two. This is enough for Raven to get on the apron, and though Page knocks him off, Kanyon gets a flash pin for two, then finds a swinging neckbreaker for another two. Kanyon tries to follow up, but Page counters him with a jawbreaker, follows with a tilt-a-whirl slam, and signals for the Diamond Cutter. Raven’s had enough of this shit, and after Lodi runs in and gets cleared out with a lariat, Raven runs in and spikes Page with a microphone. Goldberg runs out for the save, spears Kanyon, absolutely clobbers Lodi with an overhand right and a Jackhammer, and then turns around to face off with a revived DDP after Page lands a Diamond Cutter on Raven. J.J. Dillon power-waddles on out to keep them from fighting one another. The match was entertaining enough, but the aftermath in particular was really fun stuff. We cut back to Tenay and the Wolfpac showing up at tavern number two for the night. Konnan is convinced that Hall would be in a strip club instead of this dive bar, but Nash swears that he’s had drinks with Hall here. Unlike the last spot, the bar is full of awestruck patrons who wonder what the hell is going on. Konnan desperately wants to visit a strip joint or two (heh heh heh), but Nash is adamant that Hall isn’t allowed in any strip joints in this area anymore. Yeah, I believe it. The Disciple has new music, but he’s the same old shitbrick. He’s going to squash Lenny Lane. Lane runs around pretending to be the Warrior, and it hurts Disciple’s feelings. Disciple does a rope shake and then no-sells Lane’s offense. I don’t get why this had to be on Nitro. Or SN. Or on TV at all. Disciple eventually lands a Stone Cold Stunner for three. Oh no, Penzer gives this goof a microphone. Penzer, you dumbass. Disciple says he’s done carrying Hogan’s bags. Wow, Hogan should get Judy Bagwell back out here to slap the hell out of this disrespectful bastard. Hogan comes onto the ramp from, uh, somewhere, and follows Disciple to the back through the normal entrance. But the Disciple has disappeared, OOOOH SCARY. So, this is the dumb thing that no one thought up where Warrior appears in the mirror and Eric Bischoff is the only one who can’t see him. We see him, the announcers see him, Hogan sees him. Bischoff looks like the crazy bastard, not Hogan. This was the sort of bad television that eventually gets a TV show canceled. OK, so the third place the Hummer pulls up to just looks like some dudes mother-in-law that he turned into an illegal drinking spot against his spouse's wishes after the ol’ M-I-L passed away. Hall is here, and Nash brawls with him while a bunch of twenty-something dudes cheer and a tiny smattering of twenty-something women look around confused. Well, a couple of those young ladies find the camera to get some camera time. Nash drags Hall in the bathroom and gives him a swirlie. Or possibly a guy who is dressed vaguely like Scott Hall since it was hard to see the dude’s face. Whatever. I give Bischoff a few points for trying to do a style of episode-long storytelling that the WWF excelled at in this time period. I mean, I took away a bunch of points for the previous segment, so he’s well in arrears, but still. Oh great, more Eric Bischoff! I’m so excited to hear him cut a promo on Ric Flair. I’ve wondered where they were going with this whole “the Horsemen are banned” thing, and I think actually I know. We are headed toward Flair/Bischoff, maybe at Starrcade, and then Flair being the new commissioner or WCW executive committee leader or whatever, right? And then Flair tries to pull off a double turn with Hulk Hogan that absolutely no one wants except for Flair and Hogan? Arn Anderson comes out, but I’m distracted by thinking about what is the least straightforward booking of this angle that anyone could possibly come up with. Arn introduces “the champ,” and that brings out Reid (w/terrible haircut, medal). Reid looks terrified as fuck to be on television. He cuts a bad promo, but I don’t judge him. Basically, he is down here to kick Bischoff’s ass. What is happening right now? Everything Bischoff is personally involved in fucking SUCKS. Fuck, this is some awful television. I’m depressed to see Arn Anderson on my screen, imagine that. Reid hits a couple double-legs on Bisch. Whatever, it got a pop. Columbia wrestling fans are good sports. There’s a commercial break, and when we get back, Bischoff is still fucking standing out here. He’s got Liz on the phone calling someone, and I don’t fucking care. Bischoff rants while Liz tries to get Ric Flair on the phone. This is the opposite of compelling television. Now Bischoff pretends to have a conversation with Ric’s wife. Oh, I should clarify, huh? Ric’s wife Beth. He has a fake conversation off-mic (Larry Z. is confused as to why we can’t hear any of this) and then “Thus Sprach” hits and the elder Flair comes to the ring. The crowd gets catharsis as this is what they wanted to see, and immediately a bunch of B-Teamers run down and surround the ring. The Horsemen quickly run down and clear them out. I can imagine what Bisch would say: The crowd was hot, so obviously something about it worked. And hell, Nitro even barely lost the night, so look, who am I to say that this was wretched television? Oh, yeah, I’m a wrestling fan who is still devastated that WCW went out of business in part because Bischoff is bad at creative. That’s who I am to say that this was terrible fucking television. Sting/Bret Hart gets the last nine-ish minutes of the show. Bret comes onto the ramp and then decides that walking to the ring for a wrestling match is a stupid idea. He leaves. Sting runs after him. *sigh* We follow to the back where Sting catches Bret and beats him up. As Tony S. points out that we’re watching yet another backstage event, some EA exec has a great idea for a game if they ever get the WCW license. They brawl throughout the backstage area. Bret gets the upper hand, attacks Sting’s knee and ankle, and then, sliding around on the floor, tries to Pillmanize Sting’s knee with a chair and a garbage can. This is fine as a wandering brawl, but I was promised a match in the ring. Bret tries to use a cart to VROOM at Sting, but it doesn’t start, so Bret abandons the spot. What a fucking ripoff this whole main event was. This brawl just goes on forever. Bret gets a Sharpshooter for a bit; Sting gets a Scorpion Death Lock for a bit. The crowd finally runs out of what I thought was an endless well of patience; they boo and chant BULLSHIT because they realize that they got ripped off. It was like I fell in a portal and went to a world where Bischoff booked RAW in 1998. Oops. Let me amend that statement. It was like I fell into a portal and went a world where Bischoff booked RAW very badly in 1998. As it turns out, while there were bright spots (Judy dressing down Buff Marcus, Juvi and Jerry Flynn having decent chemistry), the Raven/Kanyon/Lodi/DDP/Goldberg segment saved this show from a null or negative score, it was so much fun. 0.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

This was duplicated in one of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark volumes, in which someone was terrified in their office by a man of vague Eastern European ethnicity calling their phone ("I am THE VIPER, I will be at your office at one," "I am THE VIPER, I am only thirty minutes away," "It's THE VIPER, I am coming up the stairs to your office"). Why this person in the Scary Stories tale didn't just vacate the premises, I don't know. At least the Joes had the excuse that they were trying to protect their base of operations.

Man, Captain Lou RULES.

Hey Curt, I know who to talk to if you want to experience the sheer magic of a bad '80s cartoon with episodes that include a red-haired Princess Toadstool and Captain Lou trading jokes with a Cher impersonator!