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Notice how throughout the night they took time to explain how and why a camera crew got to Austin on the bridge. An iconic moment for sure and a pretty funny segment all around, from Austin's promo to Rock's realization that that's *his* pager that Austin chucked into the water.

Show me the Carfax, WWF!

Owen looks like a badass motherfucker, moreso than he ever did before, and is as over as a babyface as he ever was in *any* setting or would be again. This crowd was just begging for him to lay Vince out. And all the "this is real life" talk sounds about 9 million times more genuine than when any number of Russo shooty-shoot promos or hackneyed Roman Reigns promos used that line. I get that they probably didn't want two outcast antiheroes in black in the main event scene, but I think there was room for it if they had any inclination to push Owen as anything other than a sacrificial lamb for Triple H.

Seeing the Rock start to coalesce into his more familiar form, week by week, is almost more fun than watching the rise of Stone Cold and the birth of the McMahon feud, since even at this point a lot of people were still skeptical of him. A few of the catchphrases are forming, the People's Eyebrow is now here, and he has some great bug-eyed responses to both the crowd chants and Austin's trash talk.

Getting entrance music in "clean" form was quite the ordeal for a long time. That would change, starting about now.

This gimmick always sounded funnier when described on message boards (I had mostly tuned out of ECW in real time at this point and would stay that way until the TNN days) than in actual execution. It was definitely something of its specific time and place, when Snow was seen as a superstar-who-never-was.

Who was the blonde chick after we saw Beulah and Francine? This was still less disturbing than naked Bluedust or Meanie as Harley Quinn.

Sting pretending to be the dummy was a cute enough reveal, but I dunno...this company sure feels creatively bankrupt (as opposed to the WWF which is the exact opposite extreme). I get that they were going for a "more of the same" feel by design to set up Sting's return, but Hogan rambled for too long for too little of a payoff--the "fake Sting is actually the real Sting" card has been played too many times itself. Sting fending off the entire NWO while unable to free himself from his rappelling gear is awkward to say the least, but it's impossible to complain about *that* now.

Flair even sort of second-guesses himself on that Steiners-Outsiders match. Maybe he was at least paying attention to that Giant interview. Already we're starting hype for Flair vs. Bret. I can understand the logic behind that match-up as Bret's first in WCW, but I dunno...I think you need to go all-in and run Bret vs. Sting as soon as you can and go for the jugular against the WWF. There's time to build and then there's time to strike--by waiting and not really building up Bret as the uncrowned champion, all those legit dream matches never really happened.

Good enough promo from Nash, but why is the heel talking about coming back from a knee injury and issuing a challenge to the babyface? Giant responds and sounds like Shawn Michaels with the amount of downers he seems to have in his system. Nash points out that Giant is one-dimensional and only has the Chokeslam, so Giant's response is that he's bringing...the CHOKESLAM. What a rebuttal. Okerlund trenchantly points out that this will be WCW vs. the NWO. I'm pretty sure this segment didn't accomplish anything than a straight-up match announcement wouldn't have.

WrestleMania is essentially set right here, as Austin announces his intentions to go after the WWF title. And the post-WrestleMania scene is essentially set here as well, as Vince is continuing to lose control of Steve Austin. The IC title is buried a little bit here, yes, but at least Austin has solid and clear goals going forward.

The laughs are more at the WCW's bureaucratic, left-hand-not-knowing-what-the-right-is-doing expense, at least for me.

History is made as Mero drops the "jobber" word on wrestling television. Then he outs Sal Sincere as Tom Brandi in a "stupid gimmick." Ross gets in one of the Zingers of the Year in response to that--"Yeah, and I'm a baaaad man." Mero then brings out his "property"--Sable in a potato sack. Sable reveals a bikini instead of disrobing Mero, and I'm sorry, but I still don't get it with her. She's in great shape but I don't see her as being overly attractive. Mero chases Sable to the back and gets counted out--this was the *second* straight match on this show to end in this fashion, a countout as soon as the match starts (Vader chased Goldust to the back after he flashed him, resulting in a countout win for Jeff Jarrett). Wrestling has taken a complete and total back seat to everything else--part of it due to a depleted and injured roster, part of it due to the Russo influence, part of it due to desperation. "Only referee in the country that takes 30 seconds to count to 10"--Chad is right, Ross has absolutely no fucks left to give at this point. I could rip on JR for being unprofessional as I have in the past, but I find it hard to blame him. There's nothing overly wrong with this segment in particular, but these shows as a whole give off a late-'80s World Class or 2000s WCW vibe more than they do a company about to start its most profitable run ever.

HHH still hasn't gotten any better as a promo and his line about the missile being asleep and Sarge's wife dreaming ends up making no sense. Shawn recites a pretty rote promo but I've always cracked up at him referring to himself as "thrice" WWF Champion. Then a horrifyingly drawn-out analogy about Owen Hart being a nugget, the less said the better even though it's not going to go away. Eventually the Headbangers come out for a match and pay for flipping over the poker table. This goes on and on until Owen finally breaks it up. The best things about these DX segments that I'm going to have cling to are JR's reactions. Between DX, Goldust, Mero, and even the Jackyl's ramblings, this was a golden age for classic Jim Ross Disgust. "The WWF has champions it can really be proud of!"

Prichard's JR impersonation seems to be slipping back into Brother Love at points.

I honestly didn't see it coming at the time, but it's clear from the moment Vince appears on-camera where they're going with all this. He's looking out for the fans, but doing it in a disingenuous manner designed to maximize boos or cheers, depending on what he says. Loss' qualms about Austin giving the ref the Stunner last night are satisfied here, or at least they should be, as Vince brings that up as another Stone Cold transgression. Vince blames the second referee for counting Rocky down when the first ref was about to disqualify him--thus, Vince is DEMANDING that Austin defend the IC title against Rock once again. Austin is out to rebut, and JR compares him to Latrell Sprewell. This is early in the run and a lot of the familiar beats aren't there yet (Vince announces the match without saying "...in this very ring"), but seeing two fantastic foils--possibly the best since Dusty & Flair--playing off of each other is so great to see after a year and a half where heeling seems to be all about being too cool for school and working against your opponent rather than with him.

I enjoyed seeing both teams invent new ways to put opponents in holds so their partner could level them with dropkicks, and Liger's general dickishness. After Takaiwa & Kanemoto get absolutely brutalized for 10 minutes in near-squash fashion I thought their comeback and victory came a little too easily, though on the other hand it's hard to argue with Samurai not being able to continue after taking three power bombs and a moonsault. Enjoyable but ultimately inconsequential.

This was pretty awesome in its speed and ferocity and I really didn't notice any sloppiness--certainly there are many "smoother" UWF matches that are about 1/100th as exciting. Finish is sudden but had a definite "holy shit, he's dead" vibe to it.

Exactly. The "Fappening" and the Erin Andrews incident were both news (and actual legitimate news at that)--that doesn't mean that Gawker, the Huffington Post, or anybody else can actually show the video.

Owen's return is the big story here, but having watched this for the very first time it already feels like he's being downplayed, as he runs away through the crowd and Shawn and Hunter still get to celebrate in the ring as the show goes off the air. Owen's beatdown is very good and realistic-looking, with some Lawler/Snowman-esque going after Shawn's eyes, and if they were going to go with a copout DQ finish to start with, then this show really should have ended on a cliffhanger with the beatdown ongoing.

Rock refers to himself as the "People's Champ" in the pre-match promo, perhaps for the first time. Austin takes a few very safe bumps but this is a match clearly designed to cover for him. Rock does one People's Elbow and attempts another, to NO reaction. Very much a preview of the WWF main event style to come in 1998 and '99. Enjoyable but too brief to really be called a good match.

D-X as a PPV feels comparable to KOTR '94, but not as good. Just a very, very WEIRD vibe throughout--not bad, necessarily, but weird. Like a company in complete turmoil. And yes, it did one of the worst buyrates in company history, so few people saw this. Dustin's delivery is great but the joke sort of peters out really quickly. Luna agrees with me and drags Goldust away before he can finish.

This is a lame and hollow attempt at recreating Superstar Steve Austin. I just said this a few posts ago but between Shane Douglas, the NWO, DX, and now Stevie, ENOUGH OF THE FUCKING GIGGLING HEELS ALREADY. Also, this *may* have had more effect if the puppets at N2R weren't tripping all over themselves to welcome Stevie back even as he was laying out their hero and helping Team WWF.

Another one who liked this more than the '91 match. Some gorgeous technical wrestling on display here, especially Blue Panther's unique scissored takedowns and Atlantis working both an abdominal stretch and various kinds of armbars at the same time. Atlantis feels like he's really overcome long odds to take the win in 2 straight--the build-up to the Atlantida maybe isn't the greatest and I agree that I could have watched this go a good while longer, so maybe not a true MOTYC, but it's another standout match in a terrific year for lucha. This felt like a lucha version of Bockwinkel/Robinson from 1980 Japan with how vicious the matwork seemed at times. While AJPW seems to be sort of losing the plot, AAA and EMLL both seem to be going "back to basics" after a few years of ECW-ized brawls. It's refreshing to see as pure wrestling gets more and more de-emphasized in the Big Two.

Excellent match that just got better as it went along. It didn't seem like they were going for an "epic" like last year, and of course the match wasn't as good--but damned if they didn't have me marking out by the end. This builds slowly by design, with the first psychological hook being Jun's bad back and then a second hook brought on by Misawa being taken out and knocked to the floor, as seems to happen so often in these Tag League finals. Misawa countering the powerbomb/chokeslam at the end was a spectacular hope spot, one of the best I've ever seen, as it caught me totally by surprised. By this point I was flashing back to Kobashi's first Budokan main event, when I was actively getting emotionally involved--TAG OUT, JUN, TAG MISAWA, DAMMIT. Jun survives some heartstopping near-falls, some with Misawa's help, but that final hot tag never comes. This was a sort-of rare AJPW tag match where anybody could conceivably have pinned anybody else, and that kept me guessing the whole way through. Don't know if this will make the MOTYC list or not but AJPW manages to close out the year on a positive note.