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Yeah, if this segment was mostly improv'ed, that actually added to the effect. Savage was terrific here, and it was really rare to see Okerlund so effectively bullied and emasculated. There's no sense of fun Okerlund-heel banter here--you really get the sense that Savage is half a second away from cleaning Mean Gene's clock. Speaking of emasculated, that's still how they're portraying J.J. Dillon, but his line about Savage hiding behind Liz was a good prompt for Randy to deck him. Savage has been sort of strangely isolated from the rest of the NWO, but for this segment that also adds to the effect.

Pretty good stuff, just unfortunate coming after the Mankind clip. It is a little more pragmatic in selling you on the DDP-Savage GAB rematch, though. DDP is already getting a head start as a professional motivator.

Mankind defines Cactus Jack in contrast to the era of dyed hair and bodybuilder physiques, before showing us how his body can be a symbol of life fulfilled--an arm scar from Tokyo, a missing ear from Germany, a head scar from Louisville, and all points between. Mankind relishes in the ability to make people sick. Foley was probably right in ranking this among the 3 best things in his career.

LOD are basically statues, though Animal shows some fire. And yet Austin and Michaels and the booking manage a way to work around that to put on maybe as good of a match involving LOD as you could hope for in 1997. Seeing Austin and Michaels work as a heel team was intriguing as hell, and they pull it off without selling out their own characters. I didn't get then and don't quite get now why it was important to keep the belts on them, and I don't think the Harts costing them a title loss would have hurt them, but champs they remain.

Cornette, Honky Tonk Man, and the Headbangers try the old Jurassic Park velociraptor gambit, but it doesn't work. It remains astounding that people--Vince, Dunn, and whoever else in the general public--saw more in Sable than in Sunny.

"Mrs. Foley's little boy" is a phrase uttered for the first, but certainly not last time.

I don't think Bret had jumped Shawn backstage just yet--the reason for the KOTR change was Bret was legitimately still not ready, at least according to the Observer (I'm not reading ahead). Shawn is at his most tolerable here because most of his aggressions are towards Austin and he's out to get the storylines over without any shooty stuff to worry about. Austin and HBK decide not to throw down backstage as they have a tag title match later with LOD, but Bret and Pillman propose that they face each other at King of the Ring. Austin agrees, then promises to take care of Pillman's crippled, raspy, hoarse-voiced ass the next night on Raw.

Good match that I'm not as high on as the others--the criticisms people had of Kanemoto in earlier bouts, which I hadn't really noticed, seemed to rear their heads here, as he seems to have trouble holding matches together as well as Liger and Otani can. He has some terrific moves but isn't as complete a worker as the best NJ juniors. This is still very good and feels really evenly matched--a lot of these upsets come off as flukes because the guy doing the job gets to control the offense for the bulk of the match. They don't work like that here--Kanemoto is on top for a healthy chunk of this and while Liger gets in some good near-falls, he spends most of this fighting from underneath.

The tear gas line is from the 5/5/90 episode of USWA-Texas, when Jeannie pepper sprays Chris Adams. No recollection about the religious fundamentalism line and am baffled as to its context--maybe something he said to Akbar. My favorite non-ironic Lowrance call is from the Gordy/Roberts vs. Von Erichs Badstreet Match of 1988, pleading for Kevin to be okay after Gordy has piledriven him and is sitting on the mat, cackling with glee. One of the indelible images from my wrestling childhood--I didn't watch much World Class as a kid but I did happen to see that on ESPN one afternoon.

Right, one of Tenryu's other beefs was being asked to team with Wajima, so that was part of the turn.

AND NOW THAT FAT SLOB IS CHOKING JEFF JARRETT.

I still think Marc Lowrance is in the next tier down from the all-time greats. He wasn't a guy you turned to if you wanted a breakdown of the pressure points of a figure four, but few people have been better at getting over heel atrocities. Lowrance *made* Embry-era World Class/USWA--Embry himself was the only guy more important in making that run as ridiculously fun as it was. I'd be curious as to what El-P thinks of him as he makes his way through WCCW.

"Same as it ever was" was precisely the problem, since the consensus at the time and as it appeared watching the Yearbook was that WCW Flair was stale as month-old bread and could have used a change of scenery (or a babyface turn), and there was some naive hope that the WWF would provide it. "This is how Vince always did things" doesn't really fly either, considering what a huge left turn in booking philosophy is coming for the WWF in just a couple months' time.

This was definitely Gilbert working entirely on his own.

No idea why the Dudleys came out, other than to set up a contrived series of run-ins. Rude is having too much fun being filthy--"Big Dick is choking Balls!" Sandman is a guy who seems to have totally lost direction since his feud with Raven was blown off. This ends with Stevie knocking out Terry Funk with the Stevie Kick and doing the Big Stevie Cool pose over him.

Richards regales us with the story of hitching a ride to Madison Square Garden the Philadelphia Civic Center and seeing Jimmy Snuka dive off a cage the Midnight Express win the tag titles from Arn & Tully and being inspired to be a wrestler. Sorry--just kind of funny to see this in proximity with the Mankind interview. The BWO--Da Blue Guy, Hollywood Nova, and Thomas "Inchworm" Rodman--follow up, and they're not happy about Stevie abandoning them. I like Stevie's promo and don't even mind the glasses, but they still seem to be half-assing this transformation. The Raven split was drawn out to ridiculousness and now even though he's seemingly no longer a member, Richards is still wearing BWO colors.

Dutch Mantell is feuding with GYPSY JOE now?? And talking about Raw? And aligned with ECW?! "Weird" barely begins to even describe this episode.

Fake Diesel and Fake Razor are now feuding--not exactly the MegaPowers exploding. McMEMPHIS!! Vince carefully explains to the USWA fanbase what an "ingrate" is, and explains how a "complete bum" who can't wrestle but can do impressions was made into something by the World Wrestling Federation, only to turn his back...for the USWA, of all things. Vince is much more animated here than in 1993. Razor and Diesel end up brawling.

Billy Joe still throws a wicked punch. And he's still sporting his ridiculous one-legged tights from 1989. He and future WCW cup-of-coffee-holder Luther Biggs do a number on Christopher with an electric guitar in the WMC parking lot.

Razor cuts a Spanish-tinged promo on Billy Joe Travis. Pretty bad and I don't know why we're bothering to continue with this gimmick charade, unless like with Jacobs they were just killing time until or if they could come up with something better.

Yeah, sadly Lawler and Lance are starting to feel and sound really out-of-touch here--Dreamer's name being dropped draws a noticeable pop from the studio crowd, too. This is an interesting addition to the Lawler-ECW feud with Lawler taking a different tone than what he was doing in the WWF, but I don't think this is going to do much for the USWA. Lawler also takes time to gloat about ECW's role model taking a shotgun to his head--stay classy, Jerry.

Hot closing stretch and a mega-pop for the title change from a crowd that was subdued to start. But I have a feeling that if this whole match were that good, they wouldn't slash it from 28:40 down to 5 minutes.

There's nothing quite new here--we've seen bogus Stings worshipping Hogan before, we've seen Sting Death Drop Bischoff before, we've seen him come down from the rafters before, we've seen Hogan cower before...but damn, it just doesn't get old. We do get one new twist, as Sting flies back into the rafters as the NWO surrounds him. This is one of those segments I remember absolutely losing my shit over and a lot of details--Schiavone's "We are out of time!" "HE'S GONE! AND SO ARE WE!"--have stuck in my mind. Incidentally, one thing I didn't remember was Hogan pratfalling over the bowed-over fake Sting. That was pretty funny.

Syxx points out that Nick Patrick wasn't reinstated until the night *after* Slamboree--hard to argue with that. Then we get a replay of Flair getting destroyed the previous week. Quick and dirty segment--I'm surprised that amidst all the clever lines they didn't further capitalize on being in "Nash"ville (we did get a fan sign to that effect).

Not a bad piece at all, but it is very '80s Macho Man which is sort of jarring in the black-and-white, MTV shaky-cam '90s.