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I wonder if the fans honestly didn't recognize Jarrett--he's got his hair slicked back and is in a dweeby suit. We can roll our eyes at Vince constantly having his guys in their ring gear, but there is something to be said for "branding" and I think the lack of it hurt Jeff here. Of course, he wasn't exactly super-over in any of his other Big Two roles, either. No one in the crowd is impressed by Jarrett blasting WCW and Bischoff--he's blasting the competition but is so whiny about it that it's impossible to cheer him. Jeff talks about "stroke" and makes fun of Debra in two odd moments of foreshadowing. Poor Vince gets verbally abused yet again. There are some attention-getting lines and passages here, to be sure, but I don't recall anything about this run adding up to anything consistent or high-quality.

This is SO clearly the work of DX, again making everyone else in the company look dumb. I dug Faarooq's reaction and his confrontation with Vince, though--shades of the famous Halifax incident. Vince's attempts to downplay the obvious racial aspects of the vandalism are...really weird. Shawn is out to self-righteously proclaim himself to be the savior and guiding light for the WWF before the Harts run him off. This set-up and the WWF trying to sort of have it both ways are really distasteful, but the chaos and heat it generates are hard to argue with. By the time Austin has made his run-in and dropped Faarooq with the Stunner, the camera is literally shaking, it's so loud.

We get our first glimpse of some of the big post-glory-days ECW names, including Lance Storm, Justin Credible, Rhino, and Spike Dudley. Good piece of business--it's been awhile since we've seen this kind of video from the company.

Weird but honestly kind of effective and different kind of tribute...at least until the voice belching out "EXTREME, CHAMPIONSHIP" at the end.

Just a horrible, horrible finish--we've already touched on the inconsistent security, but Schiavone really comes off as dumb when he's begging for Dillenger to let Flair go. That's a DQ and the NWO keeps their title, Tony. Then the mistiming of the rollup and Randy Anderson breaking character by holding his head in his hands at everyone's fuck-up...just really bad bush-league stuff that WCW is still capable of even at their highest peak. Now Piper's out, glad to see him putting over the big beatdown he got earlier in the show. The Sting clones is an interesting idea but it sort of reeks of Sullivan or Taylor being too clever by half, and the execution on *that* is bad as well as the NWO destroys DDP and Piper forever before the Sting Army even shows up, then it takes the real Sting an eternity to make his presence felt even if his reveal was cool. This segment overall was a complete mess, and Clone Army aside really felt like WCW/NWO by numbers. Schiavone's exasperation with the lack of a WCW save goes beyond just normal babyface announcer indignation to the point where he honestly sounds fed up with what he's calling, though I could be reading too much into that. We're starting to see signs of Tony, who's mostly had a terrific year, slipping into the caricature he'd become in 1999.

Piper *has* been good in this role. I don't want to see him wrestle, but his interviews have all been decent to downright good. I didn't care as much for the beatdown--Hogan disguised as Sting was kind of clever but that fake Sting shouldn't have fooled anyone, and Schiavone clearly doesn't quite know what he's supposed to be putting over when "Sting" whacks Piper with the bat. And yes, the lack of WCW guys making the save just doesn't make any sense.

This starts off as an NXT-style inside look at a star on the rise, then we make a sharp left turn and get a bunch of clumsy exposition about the DDP-Savage stipulations at Slim Jim's Halloween HavocTM. For some reason the shot of DDP sitting down magically turning into a shot of DDP standing next to the ring, thanks to all the cuts, just cracks me up. It was intentional but it just looked like sloppy continuity. DDP is already well on his way to his motivational career with some of the platitudes he gives us here.

Not really a good match, but heated. One of a small handful of Steiner bouts where Rick plays FIP. His block of the Bronco Buster gets the crowd going, and the finish is clever and well-done, as they tease yet another screwjob, but licensed referee Larry Zbyszko ends up counting out both NWO guys and the Steiners finally have the tag titles for real. Still, to call this payoff overdue would be putting it mildly.

Honestly, I think the guy who was best at getting Raven's musings over as the act of a self-pitying jerk was actually Jim Ross.

The Mexican Dr. Ruth talks to us about Aztec traditions being borne out in the lucha mask. Agreed that it would have been better to have subtitles--I think it would have genuinely added to their "exotic" appeal, for lack of a better term, to hear them in their own language.

Savage is sullen and pouty in a neckbrace, still selling the Diamond Cutter from the previous week. In a clever bit of continuity, Piper still has Hogan's title belt after using it to clear the ring the previous week. Hogan vows vengeance on Piper and DDP. All in all a fun segment, but we now have top heels on both shows constantly crowing about how much money they draw in comparison to their opponents, which has never been something I found particularly compelling as a wrestling storyline.

I'd vote Shane ahead of RVD too, but I'd vote for Bill Alfonso ahead of both of them.

Hawk and Phineas look pretty bad here, but they definitely put a lot of thought into the smoke & mirrors they put into this to try to make a compelling match. Cletus takes a *nasty* shot to the nose as he's turfed out of the family and company.

Mushnick is a laughable, racist old crank but his column about early wrestling deaths probably should have been given more attention. Phil was right about federal inquiries into baseball, at least.

They're definitely giving this the old college try with LOD, but it's telling that the previous week on Shotgun we saw the aligning of Road Dogg & Billy Gunn, which would be a much bigger deal than anyone could have anticipated, least of all Hawk & Animal. Vince signs his release for Austin to return to action effective 11/9, but browbeats Austin into signing or the deal is off. How could they NOT have had this feud in mind at this point? The NOD interrupt again, as basically Russo was becoming incapable of writing an interview segment without one, but since they're keeping strong talkers in these segments I'm okay with it. Also bears repeating how horribly banged up the roster was, which is really what necessitated the Crash TV, matches-are-secondary format. Austin drops Rock with the Stunner for the first but certainly not last time. Yeah, this episode really does feel like a total changing of the guard for the company. Outside of the LOD segments, this is a show right out of 1998. ARNOLD SKAALAND makes an appearance, before doing a Mission: Impossible and pulling his face off to reveal Fred Blassie. We get a weirdly self-aware cameo from Mascarita Sagrada and we're out.

The first of several Kane run-ins to come, with the idea that Kane will cause chaos until Undertaker answers his challenge. Shawn running in and stealing a "pinfall" is the little bit of attention to detail that is completely missing from Raw these days. This was the first genuinely amusing Shawn & HHH skit. Hype follows for Helmsley vs. Patriot, which would end in much the same way with Rude jumping Patriot and HHH stealing a win the same way.

Blink and you'll mess Tony Anthony in his brief run as Uncle Cletus. Says something that seemingly nobody even blinked at the Godwinns running around with a Confederate flag.

Moving on. I need a Clique break.

Shawn & HHH are seriously the biggest impediment to me finishing this Yearbook. This is total bury-the-opponent bullshit that's worse than the worst Jerry Lawler stuff from 1990. If "everybody" is younger and better than Bret, why the fuck should we care if HBK beats him? Of course, Shawn doesn't care about any of that at this point, either. D-Generation X officially has a name.

The WWF had teased a split-up between the two the previous week and it seems like they had designs on a one-off Hawk vs. Animal match, but their contracts stipulated tag matches only.

Slow build as the Demon Army methodically tear away at Kobashi's bad knee, but it builds well to a hot closing stretch where Kobashi successfully neutralizes Kawada after a pretty awesome exchange of kicks and lariats. That leaves a wounded Taue against Ace--I'm assuming this is the biggest pin of Ace's career to this point, as I don't recall him getting a direct pin over one of the Corners before. A fun match that had me guessing a few different times as to what would happen next.

The use of MMA on these sets has been pretty well-done, IMO, and this is another worthy addition to the catalogue. Plus it touches on the Rickson-Anjo incident which hasn't been released publicly but was a huge story with major implications for shootstyle. Here, Rickson exposes another UWFI guy in much more public fashion. I don't know much about MMA but Bas and the other guy did a very good job of explaining how clueless Takada looked in the guard position. You can't accuse Takada of lacking guts to take this fight, at least.

What a surreal group of people gathered in here at the start of this. Everything about this was well-done as we take a left turn from the usual Michinoku style match for what's essentially a heavyweight contest with a few dives. I just didn't find myself being grabbed by it--I don't know if I let the crowd get to me or if this whole thing felt like an inevitability because we all knew TAKA was leaving.

Good to see Yakushiji back again, though he's a bit off from his '96 peak. Glad to see everyone else had the same reaction to Delfin that I did--I can't tell if he's holding his arms out like that to try to show off his juiced body or if he's literally so thick and roided that he can't put them all the way down at his sides. Pretty fun match, but it's hurt by some uncharacteristic sloppiness at points. It still builds well to the babyfaces isolating Togo in the ring and eventually grounding him into defeat--it does take a bit too long to get there, and Delfin whiffs badly on what's supposed to be the closing Shotei, making the finish even more anticlimactic.

Do you want to know the *real* story of why the Wolfman got a push? He had an ownership stake in the company that made "Power Maker II," which was a key sponsor of late-period SMW TV. Power Maker II was sort of like ICOPRO if it were made in a moonshine till, as best I can figure.