El-P

For people interested in WWE in the 00's, the Nova shoot is pretty interesting. Lots of stuff about the mentality of the company, OVW, bullying… Totally buries Bruce Pritchard and Michael Hayes (and Roadkill), but sounds pretty fair overall. Came off like a regular dude (says that word a lot) with his head on his shoulders and as a sane and healthy human being.

I wanna see Lana do a Eurotrash club hopper gimmick with Alex Wright dance moves. This is so corny and dated, maybe that's why I find it amusing too. But yeah, they need to drop the political stuff.

Indeed. Either that or a hot DDP vs Savage segment. Anticlimatic to say the least.

The nWo is totally carrying this build-up, as I'm really tired of Piper at this point, Flair is not that good, and Kevin Green with these two just doesn't make much sense considering his history with Flair. He should have faced Mongo at the PPV.

Always loved Liz's nWo outfits. Sexy but classy.

Exactly this. Everything about him screams WWE 00's.

Because if the world needs something, it's another Cornette shoot interview about Vince Russo. I love Corny and no doubt he'll probably tell some good stories, but come on...

Yes, but this has nothing to do with them being "artists" or not. This has everything to do with them wanting to do their job really well. Wanting to have the best match possible because the fans have paid their money to see you doesn't mean you're an artist, it means you're a real pro who takes great pride in its task. And it's great.

Yes! I had the exact same reaction at the time. It's interesting that so far this year, this is really the only Nitro that had the NWO just going crazy laying everyone out without getting anything in return at all. Clearly they got the balance wrong at a certain point, but as of May 1997, WCW was still more competitive than I remembered them being. Agreed. Although JJ Dillon showing up as an inept authority figure just doesn't feel right to me, I'm afraid shit is gonna happen sooner than later. But this is a great beatdown, with a lot of attention to small details like it's been said.

It also made Rey look stupid as he did not even bother to think about any backup after what happened a few weeks earlier. Indeed. And really, JJ Dillon has looked like a complete fool since he debuted. I'm not sure but it may be the point where the balance of power actually got all screwed up, by giving a totally inept WCW authority figure who wasn't needed since the babyface heat was all on Sting/Luger/Giant/DDP as an offensive unit. Otherwise, this is a terrific squash, Rey Mysterio countering the bronco buster for what I think is the very first time (a defensive spot Rey would himself fall victime of a lot in the future), Nash bumping outside, and a huge Razor's Edge to kill Rey. Why does no one comes out to defend him ? He has no friends ? Syxx trolling JJ was indeed awesome, Waltman was on fire and it's a shame he got injured and fired because I enjoy heel Syxx a whole lot more than babyface X-Pac.

Slow build. Bischoff is sporting a goatee now, the Steve Austin influence maybe. WCW was so hot at this point they could allow themselves to not use Hogan all the time, they had confidence in building toward the big feud at the end of the year without rushing anything. But 7 months may be a tad bit long.

I didn't realized Flair didn't want to work with Syxx. If anything, it shows how selfish and out of date he was too at this point. Good line about Syxx though. What the fuck was Piper doing, he looked like he was senile. "Tradition bites" kinda sucked.

One hour Nitro, so no time for an in-ring segment. This little vignette does the job.

Scott Hall was back the previous week already. Cool to see the Wolfpack together. Them and Hogan should have been the nWo.

Well, the nWo totally carries this feud, because these two look old and irrelevant.

Oh, the promos he coumd have cut ! Van Damme is a cult figure in France for all the ridiculous interviews he gave over the years.

Could be great or could be dry and all about Bret talking about Bret. We'll see. On the other hand, WWF 1981 Timeline with Rick Martel, then yeah, this one surely should be great.

Yeah, after the dry and boring KC Timeline I wasn't expecting much, yet it was excellent. Steve really knows how to drive his interviews home, he's been consistently awesome at it.

First off, why the fuck are Vince, Norton, Bagwell and fake Sting in the ring anyway. Second, I love the fact that 38 year old Nash refered to himself as a young lion. And I just realized I reached the same age, and I certainly don't feel like a young lion. Anyway, Waltman cut an excellent promo and Nash simply cut a money promo. Too bad half of it was basically a babyface promo. But it was still great and probably heartfelt. I got a kick out of him saying that back in the days in WCW he was still pretty *green*. Terrific segment, right out of he best of ECW's Shane Douglas material, with still a problematic aspect of it being too much babyface-like (especially the bits about traveling coach and sharing rental cars). Damn, WCW was still steamrolling despite the few missteps here and there.

They should have had Grace Jones appear at ringside with Dennis Rodman at Bash at the Beach, it would have been awesome. Mayday !!!

Terrific match indeed. Nash's execution at the end was so quick and sudden and crisp, quite amazing to watch. Not a huge fan of JJ Dillon laying down the law but basically accomplishing nothing concrete and being made fun of by Nash & Syxx (after he was made fun of by Bischoff earlier on). Syxx and Nash got nuclear heat here, and it's obvious they totally missed the boat on Rey, who could have been a major star.

Glacier looked dumb for the longest time, but once they got the whole gimmick going with Mortis and Wrath (as an old Adam Bomb fan, I was quite happy to see him resurface in WCW at the time), I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, especially since the matches were fun. I wish they went full bore with this, with even more characters. This added another layer to the WCW product which was already pretty diverse.

I wouldn't go that far, but it was indeed a super strong babyface promo, and it made the most sense out of him wanting to turn back. The bit about Savage was especially well thought of considering their past differences.

(I think the "is pro-wrestling an art" discussion should be separated from the question about drawing as a metric to discuss workers, if people want to discuss about that precise point which to me is somewhat of a detail anyway since art or not art doesn't change one bit the way I'm perceiving it)

Great jazz musicians were composers too. But anyway, the "wrestling as performance art" always brings me back to the old "pro-wrestling as figure skating" joke.