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I thought the finish was REALLY lame with Guido just randomly turning on Lynn & then Super Crazy kinda sorta not really trying to stop Taijiri from pinning Lynn. I liked parts of this, mostly the stuff involving Guido and Taijiri but I never really cared for the ECW tag formula that left large parts of the match as two singles matches going on simultaneously. The Dusty stuff at the end was fun and I thought it did a good job in helping to get over Rhino but not a big fan of the tag match itself.

I liked parts of this but as a whole it didn't do a lot for me. I do appreciate the setting up of the tables before the match instead of grinding the match to a halt to do it while the match is ongoing. But yea I would agree that this didn't feel like a PPV worthy World TItle match and that it started to get repetitive. Probably would have benefited from being a few minutes shorter. I will give them credit for handling Spike's fuck up on the dive pretty well and just going with it instead of trying to somehow force Spike staying on offense like it seemed he would have. My biggest question coming out of this match though is what exactly does Judge Jeff Jones add to this act? The gimmick just seems so low rent with the robe and the gavel that it feels like it's actively detracting from Mike Awesome seeming like a bad ass to have that goof coming out with him.

I agree with the "Depressing to see Ziggler" part of that.

Tracy's promos on Power Pro are the highlight of this 2000 project for me so far. This was really good stuff and Tracy taking the boot off to use it as a weapon made me try and remember the last time I've actually seen anyone do that. Watching Dinsmore though, I find it hard to understand why people in the early 2000s kept talking about how they couldn't understand why he hadn't been called up from developmental & then the lamenting that he got put in the Eugene gimmick. He has such a basic colorless look & character in this match and in OVW that it's obvious why he had to get a Eugene type gimmick before he could have a place on the main roster. And Eugene would have been a great gimmick for him to make merchandise money off of if HHH hadn't been so adverse to hearing crowds cheer babyfaces from 2002-2004 and felt the need to kill the character's momentum.

This wasn't good but was chaotic enough to keep you interested. The editing was really bad and they'd be showing you a big move or spot getting set up and then switch the camera angle when it actually happened which I guess was them covering up for botches considering this was a taped show but it was also annoying. It made no sense that guys were breaking up pins in this especially since they just rushed the 3 eliminations right at the end including the overly complicated final ending with Rukkus kind of going to break up the pin only to get it himself anyway. I will echo everyone else saying Rukkus looked like he could have possibly turned into a star but I never even knew he existed before seeing this match and the CZW Ruckus definitely ended up achieving more fame (and it's not like even he ended up being a big name )

Glad I wasn't the only one who didn't like this. The Santo dive onto Blue Panther was cool but I came out of this feeling like I've seen all the Toryumon I'll ever need to see.

The match was fine but I was really confused by the commentary and them using two totally different names (Steve Martin/Chase Williams) to talk about what was apparently only 1 person.

Ending a show in January of 2000 with an nWo beatdown feels so tired and stale that even going back to heel Flair vs babyface Hogan in February feels like a better direction than what we got here. They also just tried to cram way too much shit into the end of it, like how do you have that big powerbomb spot and then immediately go off the air?

Yea this is exactly how I felt about the match. I mean I love 80s wrestling but this felt so behind the times and the presentation of it (especially the commentary) does it no favors. This almost feels more behind the times than even SMW although I'm not sure I could really explain it. CWF Mid-Atlantic manages to find the right balance between presenting an old school style of product while also making it modern enough to not feel like a throwback. OVW definitely didn't seem to find that balance, at least not in this 2000 stuff. OVW did a great job training wrestlers, I think the amount of guys who came from OVW and went on to be top acts in WWE proves that. But as far as creating characters that WWE could just reach down and pluck up as is, it doesn't seem like they could do that at all. I know Cornette loved to complain about WWE always changing the gimmicks of everyone from OVW when they called them up, but looking at how dated the presentation of Nick Dinsmore & Rob Conway was, that seems like more of a necessity than WWE trying to sabotage his guys or anything. I mean there is just no way you could have taken either of those guys with their current look & gimmick and put them on WWF TV in 2000 and had them as anything more than jobbers on Heat.

I really liked JBL's interview of Jimmy Hart. Too bad they're pulling the plug on that show because JBL was way more prepared than your usual shoot interviewer.

Randy Hales makes Greg Gagne look like the smoothest wrestler of all time in comparison. Cornette is actually quite good in this and all of his offense looks good while Randy is just the most awkward guy to probably ever have a wrestling match. I kind of agree that this felt too short but that was probably the right call because it kept Randy from having to really do anything except lay there while Cornette beat on on him and then make a super short comeback.

The Smothers promo here is so great, especially when Scotty Sabre comes out and Tracy is like "Whose this? I want Goldberg." The match however is a mess as Sabre is REALLY bad. So bad that he even forces Smothers to repeat a spot because Sabre can't even execute a simple sunset flip spot when Smothers is already sitting on him. I have no idea why they felt the need to do that lame ref bump leading to interference finish to protect a guy like Scotty Sabre. At least this had a great Tracy Smothers promo at the start of it.

It's almost like you've never seen an episode of WCW Saturday Night after the Nitro era began. That was pretty standard commentary for those shows, although it was always more fun with it was Tony & Dusty doing it than anyone else. I had a tiny glimmer of hope for this match because I feel like these two could have had a pretty nifty match together even in 2000 but this wasn't it. I was surprised at how loose some of Regal's strikes looked here but that chicken wing neckbreaker was pretty cool.

This is my first look at this era of OVW and I'm not at all impressed. I do like the look and the gimmick of Trailer Park Trash although he doesn't seem to be all that good in the ring but this match is an overbooked mess & Cornette is REALLY bad on commentary. I have no idea why he felt the need TO YELL EVERYTHING like he was doing here. Flash did some a couple cool moves in this match and Robbie D had a very impressive spot during the run in but overall this was not very good. I have read some criticism of the way WWE used Rico bringing him with that heel character after he'd been booked as a babyface in OVW but his look here is so 80s and lame he'd have NEVER gotten over like that in WWE.

I was really surprised by how over red and yellow Hogan was in 2000 WCW, although I acknowledge that a lot of that was probably due to them being in the Nassau Coliseum. Hogan is noticeably slimmed down from his Hollywood Hogan run & looks pretty good in this match. He looked a lot more mobile here than he would in his 2002 WWE run, at least to my eyes. This was a pretty good match and I liked the postmatch where Hogan ran off Luger & Flair and started his posedown which you thought would be the end of it only for Luger to come back and kick his ass & break his arm. I get the criticism of putting so much of the focus on these guys in 2000 but judged on it's own merits this all worked really well.

I didn't realize Terry Funk was this broken down in his 2000 WCW run, I seemed to remember it as him still having something left in the tank. I mean yea he's willing to take punishment like bumps to the floor & going through a table but he just moves like a guy whose body is completely broken down. Even his punches don't look very good. That said, with Funk's willingness to take bumps he shouldn't be taking and Luger not really having to do much other than beat on him, this ended up being better than I expect it to be on paper and even Mark Madden was not nearly as annoying as I expected him to be on commentary.

They CAN'T move the needle on Pop TV. It just isn't in enough homes. They are also NEVER going to make money on that barter deal because the whole reason they got dumped from Destination America is that advertisers didn't want to buy spots during Impact, which has nothing to do with which wrestlers are or are not on the show.

I mean you do realize the 3 office guys are obviously going to require a lot less money than 3 wrestlers who are very much in demand right now? As much as The Hardys have really been the only thing creating buzz for TNA lately, I can also see where that buzz has also made them too expensive to keep for a company that as you pointed out really have no viable revenue streams right now. It seems like they ARE in fact looking to invest in new talent, it just happens to be cheaper talent who have never gotten big breaks before like Caleb Konley and Kongo Kong who will probably be willing to sign deals that aren't worth a ton of money just for the TV exposure (however limited Pop TV exposure is now) I think by picking up a few lower profile guys on the indies and better utilizing guys they already have signed like Jessie Godderz and Moose they can still put on a viable TV product with a roster of guys that are fairly unique to TNA.

Billy Joe Travis would probably be much more well known if he'd have come around about 10 years earlier. Butch Reed had a great run in Mid-South but would have probably had an incredible WWE run if he'd have debuted around 2000 or so and hit his peak in the mid-2000s when WWE was giving chances to any big muscled up guy they could find.

I'm glad you guys went all in on going off topic to tell the story about Ronnie Lottz and especially playing the CNN clip. I laughed my ass off during that part.

Yes but the anger and the "ugh I can't believe they changed the plans!!" stuff that happens every year around Mania is ridiculous considering no one even knows what the hell the ACTUAL plans are and people convince themselves in November-January that things are going to happen a certain way and then get mad that's not what the Mania card is. Speculation & fantasy booking is fine but not when you get so overly invested in it that nothing but the card you personally fantasy booked is good enough.

No, all this pessimism and unhappiness about the card is what you get when people start fantasy booking a show in November that's still 5-6 months away. People work themselves into a shoot about matches that have not been built to at all but are "announced" via rumor & speculation and then get mad when they don't happen. I'm convinced people would enjoy WrestleMania season a lot more if they'd just stop fantasy booking it and then getting mad Vince didn't hack their computer and steal their plans.

Was that on the DVDVR set? That sounds like the No DQ match from the DVDVR set that got everyone pissed off about the DQ finish in a no DQ match.

Glad to see we've already gone into completely unhinged conspiracy theories.

Too late. There is about the same chance of Andre the Giant appearing via satellite or in person at WrestleMania as Donald Trump.