El-P

WEEK 92 (October 2 to 7, 2000) Idiotic gimmick match of the week : Plastic duck ladder match. (Nitro). Yeah, Rey & Konnan are gonna kill themselves using a ladder against Disco & Alex Wright to get the fucking plastic duck. Makes a lot of sense. The match was enjoyable nonetheless thanks to Rey's flying, which was gorgeous at times. Shitty title change of the week 1 : Reno wins the Hardcore title thanks to a reversal of decision due to interference (Nitro). Or so says new commisionner Mike Sanders. Makes no fucking sense. Another gimmicked title change. It's not like the hardcore title shouldn't be put to rest at this point, but still, it's crap. Shitty title change of the week 2 : Mike Sanders wins the cruiserweight title in a handicap powerbomb match, tagging with Kevin Nash. (Nitro) Yeah, more stupid gimmicked title change. The fact Team Canada are some of the most over heels on the roster doesn't help either. Crap. Shitty main event title match of the week : Jeff Jarrett vs Booker T in a boxes on a pole match. (Nitro) Man, Russo sure piled up a lot of shit, I mean actual shit, for his last week at the helm. Jarrett vs Booker in a horrible gimmick match on free TV, the perfect combination of Russo's reign with a very underwhelming match yet again ending up with, not a swerve sadly, but one of Stern's dwarf hitting Jarrett in the balls. Ah ah, hilarious. Or not. Complete shit. And I have given up on Booker. I waited a long long time for him to show me something better than average at very best. Steiner can't get this belt soon enough. Squash of the week : Scott Steiner vs Jung Dragons (Thunder). Excatly what you'd expect, Steiner just kills those guys, who take hellish bumps for him, making him look like the monster he is. Lea Meow strangling Midajah with her whip at ringside is the cherry on the cake. Shoot interview of the week : The Misfits in Action (Thunder). Talking about having the best matches on the show, giving to other guys what they haven't been given, about ratings, about untapped potential, well, more backstage insider bullshit that isn't relevant. They really paint a shitty picture of Rection too, as he's complaining about brain damage, not being able to see well or walk by himself in the morning. I guess they wanted to make him look like Mick Foley or something, but what comes off that interview is that the guy is a cripple basically. Sure puts him over strong for the upper mid-card. Oh, they talked about "getting over" too. Yawn... Kidnapping of the week : David Flair has kidnapped Buff Bagwell (Thunder). So there it is, after all Buff impregnated Stacy. I have no idea who's supposed to be the heel here. Anyway, as stupid as it would have been, I would probably enjoy Ric being the father more, it maybe would have been atrocious but entertaining in a pervert way. With Buff I'm just glad he's not getting involved with a worker I care about. So, now Goldberg has to win all his matches of he's being fired. Going back to the streak now is way too late, the damage had been done a long time ago. Feels like a rehash, especially by litterally mentionning the streak and making it like just another gimmick on the show. Shane Douglas is getting Konnan, this guy can't get a break and a good feud to save his life. Well, at least maybe we'll have some fun promos back and forth. Kronik apparently have turned heels (as far as I can tell) so they'll get programmed against Goldie. Jarrett vs Sting and Booker vs Steiner are the logical big feuds on top, with Lance vs Rection supporting on the upper undercard. I wonder how they'll build to the PPV with Russo officialy gone in two weeks. Well, since he won't be back on WCW TV ever and since basically he was already gone when they hit Australia, let me have myself a nice FUCK YOU RUSSO ! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCKING IDIOTIC FUCK !!!! I'M STILL THERE AND YOU'RE GONE YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAG CRETIN FUCKTARD !!! FUCK YOU SO MUCH !!!! Gawdddddd it feels good. Really, and it's two weeks in advance, but I can say I can totally empathize with a guy like Cornette after going through these two horrific stints. I can totally understand that a guy like Cornette who loved wrestling as his own life would lose his mind and go insane watching what Russo did to pro-wrestling TV. The absolute retardation and total lack of understanding of every basic rule and inner workings of pro-wrestling are just infuriating, even more than a decade later. Even I was getting furious and frustrated as all hell watching this shit in 2013. So yeah, fuck Vince Russo, once and for all. Whatever good he did under the umbrella of the WWF machine from 96 to 98 is nothing compared to the piles of unfiltered shit he threw on TV after that point, especially in WCW. I'm sure there will still be Russo's fingerprints over the TV at times in the weeks and even months to come, but still, I can say I turned the corner. I never thought I would keep on watching, there was several times I just wanted to throw all the remaining files in the basket and delete the whole thing. This was way worse that I thought it would be. The worst wrestling TV I've ever seen. And I've seen shitty stuff before. But this has been the absolute nadir.

You're my new hero.

WEEK 91 (September 25 to 30, 2000) Death of WCW title change of the week : Vince Russo, WCW champion (Nitro). He had to do it. In his delusionnal vision of him being as important as Vince McMahon, he got the idea of putting the title belt on himself and giving it away. The cage match with Booker T is complete trash, it also sees the return of Lex Luger who gives Russo a baseball bat through the fences (despite the fact he left as a babyface fighting Russo's guys) and Ric Flair dressed as an EMT. The finish is infamous for Goldberg spearing Russo through the cage, so Russo gets the first out and therefore gets the belt. Because you see, it's ratings, for sure. PPV main event gimmcik match on free TV : Goldberg vs Scott Steiner in a cage (Nitro). Yeah, hotshot the hell out of the last big program you have at your disposal, why the hell not. The match itself is good enough, but it features the most idiotic cage spot I have ever seen. So yeah, it takes place in that huge HITC cage so no one gets in (although everyone figures a way, but still). So at one point, Midajah shows up, simply opens the door and gives Scott his lead pipe. JAW DROPS. She simply FUCKING OPENED THE DOOR AND GOT INTO THE CAGE !! Not to mention a few seconds later, a huge football player who was in the crowd prevents Steiner from getting out by standing right in front of the door !! Uh... wait, where was he like, one minute before ??? It is so stupid and ridiculous. Cage matches have became such a joke at this point. Return and swerve of the week : Lex Luger (Thunder). Eh, a swerve. How swerving ! So yeah, on Nitro he helped Russo, then on Thunder he pretended he hated himself for that and that it was a mistake. And of course at the end of the day he turned against Gen. Rection whom he tagged with against Jarrett & Storm. What a swerve ! I wish Liz would have came back with him, their act together was so good and fun. Unexpected return of the week : Alex Wright (Thunder). So, he's Disco's new partner. The dancing fool are back I guess. Poor Alex, he was totally screwed over with the Berlyn character and now he's back doing silly dance moves with Disco. Well, it's better than nothing I guess. Match of the week : Lance Storm vs Sting (Nitro). The best Sting match I've seen in a long time, very dynamic, with some cool counters, especially Lance turning the Scorpion Deathlock into his half-crab. This was a very short sprint of course, but this is the best we can get out of this show. Stupid stop of the week : Shaggy 2 Dope powerbombed on the top af That 70's Bus and slidding to the floor (Nitro). Holy shit, that looked dangerous, with Awesome running on the slippery roof of the bus. Shaggy really slides off and crashes like some blobby creature. Car crash segment of the week : Miss WCW 2000 (Nitro) The freaks from the Howard Stern show are the judges. Okay, just what we needed. Pamela Paulshock wins the contest despite not officially be a part of it, because she threw a fit backstage or something I seem to recall. When Lea Meow did her thing, Madden dropped the Full Metal Jacket line "me love you long time". Classy. Pretty awful week with all the focus on Russo winning the title. The hardcore title has been vacated, Norman is nowhere to be seen (no idea why). So we get a short hardcore tournament with a decent crowbar vs Reno match. The tag titles have been won in a battle royal by Jindrak & O'Haire. Jeez, is there a title that hasn't been vacated or given away this week ? Russo is teasing that he has a revelation on Flair that could break up his family apart. I think this was the infamous "Ric Flair is the father of Stacy's baby" angle that would never see the light of the day.

I'll read that one when I'll get to watch the current basho. I was way behind this summer and just finished the July one last week. Thanks a lot for not spoiling anything for me, it's greatly appreciated.

WEEK 90 (September 18 to 23, 2000) Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Juventud Guerrera (Thunder). This is a throwback to the days of old. Beautiful matwork sequences and smooth flying, Juvy heeling it up after a babyface match beginning, cool reversals and big spots galore. I wonder how it would look next to a 98 and 96 match between those two (not mentionning their AAA classics), but in this context it really was a terrific little TV match. The winner gets a shot at the cruiserweight title, and they are booked against each other because of Disco, who's getting thrown out of the Animals during the match and beat up afterward. He's carrying an inflatable duck with him now. And he "lost" Juvy & Rey's tag title on Nitro by losing a match to The Cat. Yeah, that was more bullshit nonsense making titles irrelevant. Garbage match of the week : Mike Awesome vs Vampiro (Nitro). Hell is freezing over, a watchable Vampiro match. Props to him for taking the hard bmps, including the infamous Masato Tanaka bump through the table outside from a powerbomb. The FMW fan in me enjoyed this match quite a bit. Vamp should only work this kind of brawling match where he takes heelish bumps, that's the best he can do, really. Heel spot of the week : Shane Douglas shorthands the tag to Torrie Wilson and beats up Paisley himself (Nitro). I could live without the woman abuse, but the spot was actually really well executed. Douglas had Kwee-Wee beat, but Paisley wanted the tag so she could beat up Torrie. Douglas got her in the ring, pointed to Torrie who acted all pumped up, Torrie tried to tag and Douglas just took off his hand and turned back toward Paisley with a shit eating grin. Totally dickish and quite great to watch. Douglas is the second best heel behind Steiner in term of maneurisms, promos and overall work. It's ridiculous to have him at this level when Jarrett is crapping the main event scene with hundreds guitar crashed and awful slapnutz heavy promos. Trooper of the week : Mike Sanders losing to both Tygress and Lea Meow (Nitro/Thunder). Yep. I guess it's a way to balance things up a bit, and Sanders isn't afraid to bump for the girls, even the really petite Lea Meow. It kinda makes him look like a bitch, but since he's acting more like a manager who wrestles, it's fine I guess. Promo of the week : Jim Duggan (Nitro) A short-hair clean shaved Jim Duggan is truly a surreal thing to see. And really, he gave a solid promo on why he turned on the USA, to the point it seems he could be a really decent heel. The odd thing is that it took place in Canada, so although he was acting heelish, he still got the huge pop from the crowd, which, for his first appearance on TV as a heel, is kinda unique. The crowd was more than just pro-canadian BTW, it was a total heel crowd, booing the name of Goldberg, booing Booker T and cheering for Scott Steiner. Team canada beats up Gen. Rection some more. I enjoy this feud thus far. Lance Storm is the third best heel on the show, you just want to slap his face each time he's on the screen. Chauvinist pig interview of the week : Mike Tenay interviewing Stacy (Thunder). See, I don't get the point of all this, unless it's to humiliate a beautiful woman yet again. Tenay just brutalizes this poor girl, including saying that even he would have taken a shot if he wasn't married. And Stacy doesn't get to reply to *this* ? Really ? Tenay is really good in his role, to the point of being creepy, but really this is uncomfortable misogynic shit to me. They are building to Vince Russo getting a title shot on the next Nitro, with a lot of nonsense on Nitro leading up with a Jarrett & Steiner vs Sting & Booker T match that endend when Vince Russo pinned Scott Steiner. Yeah, it makes sense. Funny bit backstage when Kevin Nash was coaching the NBT and wrote "You Suck" on a chalkboard while explaining them what strategy they should employ. More Lava Lamp Lounge nonsense on Thunder, this time with the contestants of the Miss WCW bikini contest on the next Nitro, the one Pam Paulshock threw a fit about if she didn't win it or something. The joke is that the set gets destroyed each week. Well, that's a joke that overstayed its welcome the very first time. Still, Nitro was more watchable that it had been since Russo was off TV for a few weeks during the summer.

I watched the Dusty segment last week because it was so much talked about. I thought Dusty was excellent. I thought Stephy was still pretty damn bad. Is "I am sorry" a new WWE dramatic meme since the Flair retirement match or was I just unlucky to stumble onto this ?

I was waiting for someone to point this out. I'm glad Loss is the one who finally did it.

Yeah I'm curious to know more about exactly how and when he departed. Okay, I got the 23rd October date from the KC 2000 Timeline, so I think it's a valid source (I suppose they check their chronology). On the show Russo said he didn't even fly off to Australia two weeks before so he was pretty much done by October 9.

PPV 21 : Fall Brawl 2000 Match of the night : Goldberg vs Scott Steiner. The best match of Goldberg's career at this point. Everything you would except from two athletic monsters who throw bombs at each others. It was better than I thought it would be, and shows that Goldie had improved quite a bit in term of showing vulnerability and selling against the right opponent. He hasn't lost a step into throwing some amazing power spots. Steiner is just the best heel in the company, and he too plays his role perfectly, not afraid to bump and show ass either. The only bad part is when Russo jumps in, but in all honesty he doesn't detract from the dynamic and actually shows good thinking by covering up for a really terrible looking Midajah lead pipe shot. This is clearly the best match I've seen on WCW TV this year (not that it means much), and a legit very good, very enjoyable one. Hot opener of the night : Kwee-Wee vs Elix Skipper. I like those two quite a bit, and not because of their respective valet, although Paisley looks awesome. Good 2.0 cruiserweight action with a lot of nice looking spots and a fine pacing. They get enough time to sell some as well and build the match to a climax, so it's all good. Skipper is grating in a good way. Better than expected gimmick match of the night : Shane Douglas & Torrie Wilson vs Kidman & Madusa. This was very watchable despite the impossible gimmick. The platform was wide enough for Douglas & Kidman to work a few sequences that looked rather decent. The falls were also pretty decently built, especially Madusa falling off the ladder, but at this point this stunt-like spectacle really doesn't get that much of a reaction. At least they took safe falls onto professionnal stuntmen stuff. Torrie Wilson was visibly petrified, which worked since she was supposed to be. Surprisingly good match of the night : 3-Count vs Lt. Loco & Corporal Cajun & A-Wall. Not a fan at all of MIA, as only Chavo is good, but this flowed pretty damn well, thanks to Shannon & Shane mostly. 3-Count also brought back their old song, which is great. Swerve of the night : Hacksaw Jim Duggan turns on the USA and Gen. Rection. This was obvious as hell since the angle on Thunder, that's the issue with running "shocking turns" every week. Still, this was executed pretty damn well by Duggan, and Rection took a great looking bump face first into the corner after being hit by the 2X4. The match itself with Lance Storm was an efficient sprint with some good heat thanks to Duggan firing up the crowd. Guilty pleasure of the night : Jeff Jarrett vs Mike Awesome. Gary Coleman is in the 70's bus. Oh man... Jeff Jarrett is cutting a long-ass promo talking football, because the local football team is at ringside. This reeks of clusterfuck. Anyway, the match goes on and it's decent brawl, Jarrett looks better here than he did in months and Awesome delivers some brutal looking stuff. Of course at some point Jarrett's trolling of the football team works against him and they end up doing a lumberjack job on the apron, with Jarrett playing their bitch. The killer is Gary Coleman throwing a low-blow (what did you expect) on Jarrett, before Jeff crashed the guitar on the little motherfucker. Well, that was a guitar crash I popped for. And at least there was no swerve. Finally Sting interferes and kills off Jarrett, so that will be the next feud. Fun match and fun bullshit. Good match turned into a debacle of the night : Natural Born Thrillers vs Filthy Animals & Big Vito & Paul Orndorff. Until the Orndorff injury it was a really fun elimination match that was worked better than most Survivor Series bullshit rushed elimination stuff. They had a nice dynamics between the big guys and the team of Rey & Juvy, they worked the fact Disco was an overbearing idiot as he accidentaly cost Konnan to lose the pinfall, it flowed well, it had a good storyline with Rey, Juvy & Orndorff ending up overmatched. Sadly, Orndorff injured himself pretty badly on a piledriver, and it took a while before they realized it was severe. Watching these guys bump around him and make the ringfloor shake was kinda cringeworthy knowing it was a neck injury. They tried their best but there was no way to not stop the match, as Orndorff had to be attended. Orndorff should have come in for a few simple shots and not tried for such a hard bumping move as his piledriver. He didn't look that good either to begin with. Too bad, the match was really fun until that point. The NBT are really growing on me, especially O'Haire who a few weeks before I couldn't have cared less about. Anticlimatic main-event or the night : Booker T vs Kevin Nash. Couldn't follow Steiner vs Goldie. Plodding, very few heat. Worked a few good spots at the end, but it was pretty much a nothing match. Booker T still doesn't look like a main-event worker at all and it was glaring here following the two guys that should work on top on every show. Well, all in all this was the best PPV of the year, with the legit best WCW match of the year and some good stuff all over the undercard. Jarrett's bullshit match was actually fun to watch, and the Duggan turn was well done if predictable. Good opener, surprisingly good 6-men match thanks to 3-Count, Douglas, Kidman & Madusa making the most of a horrible gimmick match. There was a bit of garbage with Kronik vs The Harris and a lame and sloppy three way (or handicap match, I'm not even sure) between Vamp, Muta & Sting (so this was the official ending, at fucking last !), and the main event was just a dull affair, but I had more fun watching this show than I had in ages. Steiner needs to get the belt tomorrow, his performance with Goldberg solidified the fact he's the man to push at this point.

Not to mention that even with the right grammar, this sentence still doesn't mean anything in French. In Cajun maybe, but in French, certainly not. It's a litteral translation of "Let the good times roll". But I guess the whole idea is that it's Cajun country, so it's all that matters I guess. Will they bring back Corporal Cajun is the main question to me...

I believe the first Australia show is the 09 October show, but I'd like to know exactly when they really got rid of Russo.

Ah ah ! I need some fuel indeed. WEEK 89 (Septemer 11 to 15, 2000) Angle of the week : Jim Duggan passes the torch to Gen. Rection (Nitro) I was always annoyed by Duggan's unidimensional über patriotic gimmick, but in term of execution, this is actually pretty good, and makes sense too, as Gen. rection is as close as a patriotic loud-mouth goofball himself as Duggan ever was. So yeah, all teary and shit, Jim Duggan "retires" and passes the torch and Old Glory to Hugh Morrus. Lance shows up, insults are being thrown then a pretty hot sprint with Rection winning the non title match and celebrating with MIA & Duggan. Well, at least it's a good build-up and a fine use of Duggan at this point. Wedding of the week : David Flair & Stacy Keibler (Nitro). Yeah, this is stupid, but I actually kinda enjoyed the stupidity of this, simply because everyone involved was pretty good, really. Ric Flair shows up on TV for the first time since the Russo debacle and cuts a serious, toned down promo because it's supposed to be about his son. The best and legit funny part if Arn giving his "advices" to David before he marries, the best one being "it's better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission". Arn was excellent here. Then the thing gets all stupid with Flair getting arrested for a very vague reason, a ceremony reboot later in the night with Stacy telling David that he was not the father. Feel the drama ! Well, at least she hasn't had a miscarriage yet. Swerve of the week : Johnny the Bull helps Big Vito. Not ! (Nitro) Gotta have at least one swerve, don't you think ? As usual, this was totally transparent. Johnny is the new member of the NBT. Why not, he fits. Swerve of the week 2 : Kevin Nash & Scott Steiner don't get along anymore (Nitro) They are booked in a match for the World Title at the end of the show, so Nash wants Steiner to do the job for him, and Steiner doesn't go with that. Of course at the end of the day they go along perfectly fine and beat up Booker T and Goldberg. Shit, Russo wrote the same exact swerve three weeks in a row at this point. Woman abuse of the week : Miss Jones gets a guitar shot, Tygress gets double-teamed by Jindrak & O'Haire (Nitro / Thunder). Well, you also get Shane Douglas in a mix tag with Madusa so at some point he hits her, but I'll pass on that one since Madusa is a special case as she's considered a true wrestler. Still, tons of useless woman abuse shit all over the TV, with Major Gunns being treated like a property and Miss Jones being somewhat kidnapped (AGAIN !) and threatened by Jarrett on Thunder. This poor guy's character really borders on pathetic with his systematic guitar crashing, woman abuse and horrible catchphrases. Porn segment of the week : Lava Lamp Lounge with Major Gunns (Thunder). Between the set up, the music, the horrible "acting" and double-entendres by Gunns, this totally looks like an old-school porn movie. This segment was so bad-it's-good the previous week, here it's just so so bad. Swerve of the week 3 : Jim Duggan has been laid out backstage so he can't rescue Gen. Rection (Thunder) Not even mentionning the MIA look like retards since they are supposed to be a team and don't jump in the ring as soon as Rection gets in difficulty (they wait until after Duggan crawled his way to the ring), but it's yet another ridiculous, über obvious swerve coming up at the PPV. How many swerve per show can you get, really ? Russo was not only the shittiest writer ever, but it seems like he was already totally out of "ideas" after just a few months. The show is all about swerves and woman abuse at this point. The whole "Flair is the father of Stacy's kid" rumour has been launched, culminating in an interview on Thunder with Tenay asking Flair the question. Flair left the set, dejected. I guess this TV drama will go on at the PPV. One good thing at least, Sting vs Vampiro seems to be over and done with, finally. Kanyon is sadly missing. I think he didn't want to do the Positively Kanyon gimmick anymore since DDP's future was in jeopardy at this point, so it made the whole thing useless. On paper the PPV looks like it could be decent enough on the undercard with NTB vs Filthy Animals, Vito & Orndorff (but we know this will end badly), Rection vs Storm (but we know there will be a swerve) and Skipper vs Kwee-Wee. The scaffold match has no chance in hell of being good because of the gimmick. I'm throwing a blank on Jarrett vs Awesome, as Jarrett has really soured very badly with me, having yet another bad match with Sting this time. I've always been a Jarrett defender, but his stock has dropped immensely after watching this stint, only the first few months were enjoyable in term of in-ring work. Goldie vs Goldberg could be a fun monster match. Kronik vs Harris Boys I will fast forward thank you very much. Nash vs Booker in a cage I have no faith in. So yeah.

That's one of the all-time great line ever. Just perfect.

Vamp vs Sting has been running on and off (with the Demon taking the place of Sting after the injury angle) since April 10, the day of the reset. And it produced nothing but complete shit in and out of the ring. Worst feud of the year, easily. WEEK 88 (September 4 to 9, 2000) Carry-workers of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. & Juventud Guerrera (Nitro/Thunder). They already are doing a fantastic job with the NBT, but this week they managed to have a fun match with the ICP and a watchable match with the Harris Boys. Hat's off to them, despite Juvy's sloppy execution at times. Awkward spot of the week was Tygress doing her bronco buster spot (which they call "face full of stuff, that's classy...) on a Harris boy followed by Rey doing one of his own while Tygress was basically sitting on the guy's face. You don't want to know what I was thinking at that time... (but you can figure it out easily). Angle of the week : Bret Hart lures Goldberg into a trap. (Thunder). Damn, Bret Hart is such a great whiner. Here he is talking about getting screwed (okay, that's old, but the good stuff is coming) until Russo came on board, then goes into how Goldberg potatoed him (that was a bit too shooty for my taste) and ended his career. Goldberg shows up, they have an argument. Bret Hart basically trolls Goldberg into attacking him despite having played the pity party card during his whole promo, and when Goldie finally jumps on Bret's throat, Steiner runs in and beats him up from behind. Bret's smirck is one of the best ever, he's so great in this role. Good angle and it served its purpose into building the Steiner match at the PPV, Bret playing the part of a heel manager here basically. Beating of the week : The Natural Born Thrillers beat down Paul Orndorff at the Power Plant (Thunder). Again, good classic wrestling angle, the young punk shows up and bully people at the training center, then go into Paul's office and gang up on him. Simple, basic stuff that makes sense and looks good. Match of the week : Shane Douglas vs Crowbar (Thunder). Good solid match with Crowbar selling his back injury from the balcony drop and Douglas focusing his attack. Daffney shows up when Torrie Wilson was getting involved, which leads to Torrie taking a bodyslam outside the ring. Well, credit to her for taking that bump. Ends up with Madusa showing up and beating the shit out of Torrie with a brutal spinning kick that really hit its mark. The build to the PPV match with Kidman is odd since Kidman has been off TV for weeks so they work around it by using Crowbar and now Madusa. Squash of the week : Goldberg vs Shane Douglas (Nitro). Revenge match from the previous week's incident. And it's just as great. Douglas has been the most consistently solid performer work and promo wise this week, he's just awesome spewing shit about how things turned out the previous week and selling Goldberg's entrance. What makes it even better is the NBT get involved, and Goldie takes care of them at the same time. Double spear, cool gorilla press dropped while he goes into his spear and other impressive Goldie killer spots. It's like 98 again. On Thunder Goldie would take care of Elix Skipper and Lance Storm too, and it was almost as fun, with Lance basically throwing Skipper to the wolves. Godawful gimmick match and idiotic swerve of the week : Wargames 2000 (Nitro). Gawwwwwd. They teased during the whole show that Kevin Nash was turning his back on Russo after an altercation at the beginning of the show where Russo said he was going to win the title. And of course "it was a plan all along". Wait, didn't we hear that same exact phrase last week ? Seriously ? Again ? Was anyone stupid enough to not see that one coming from a thousand miles ? When you do the same swerve two weeks in a row, it really reaches the apex of retardation. Anyway, the match was awful too. Decent first few minutes with Jarrett vs Sting then Scott Steiner, but then Kronik (who won a "qualification match" against The Cat, which makes no fucking sense at all) entered and the match turned into a gigantic and boring clusterfuck. Worse than Hogan & Savage vs a thousand heels in a cage, which at least had comedic values. So bad it's good segment of the week : Lava Lamp Lounge with Mike Awesome (Thunder). Fuck, poor guy. In his limitless creativity, Russo basically redoes the Love Shack segment from 1998, only with a guy who isn't comfortable on the mic, and with awful lines to boot. The set is pretty sweet though. First guest : Pamela Paulshock. WTF ? Oh, I guess Awesome is using his set to hit on women now. Okay. Paulshock kinda plays the airhead a-la Dawn Marie here, and it suits her better than doing interviews with that dear caught in a headlights looks she has all the time. Jarrett shows up and tells Awesome he looks like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Live". Epic fail. They brawl, Awesome gets a guitar shot. Well, it was bad and ridiculous, and Jarrett really sucked on the mic here, but I enjoyed this segment nonetheless. Nitro was atrocious with awful gimmicked "qualifiying matches" for the awful Wargames match, but Thunder was actually pretty decent with some good angles, one or two decent matches and the ridiculous yet fun Lava Lamp Lounge segment. They ran a good little cruiserweight match to determine a challenger for Skipper, who's running around with Major Gunns. Kwee-Wee beat Chavo, because he's got Paisley with him and we need to have a catfight in every cruiserweight title match. That's the rule. It's about the boobs and ass. Another goofy but rather fun angle was Lance Storm making Major Gunns train hard so she could became a true Canadian. Of course the whole point was to show sweaty breasts. Ended up in a pool with Pamela Paulshock and the MIA litteraly jumping in. The PPV doesn't look that bad on paper thus far (except the awful Kronik vs Harris tag match and probably yet another Sting vs Vamp crapfest), but with Russo booking I don't want to have any expectations. The good thing is, that will be his last PPV. Still a few weeks and he's out of the picture for good.

Ok, I'm near the point of salvation aka Russo being gone from WCW. I think Ace/Taylor/Ferrara took over the booking completely on October 23rd, can anyone confirm this ?

This is glorious. Between this and the workers exchanging insults through Twitter, it's like kayfabe is back in the field. Amazing.

I remember the super slo-mo highspots videos at the end of All japan com tapes in the mid 90's, it wasn't HD of course but it looked already quite brutal to see Kobashi really eat Kawada's boot or Steve Williams really drop Misawa on his head. I have no idea why the WWE thinks it's a good idea. Most guys offense would look like complete shit if they used this device, and forcing them to work snug or take more hard shots can't result in anything good. I have no idea what is supposed to be the purpose of this in today's WWE pro-wrestling product to be honest. (I have seen this stuff a few years ago being used in sumo BTW. Looked cool but didn't add that much to the broadcast. It was quickly dropped too.) But yeah, great for porn I guess.

The future of porn at the very least.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel. There was times I knew I could quit right there and not regret it, but still had interest in watching the followup to the car crash, but weeks 82 to 84 really broke my spirit and will to go on. New Blood Rising was the piss on the shit cake. WEEK 87 (August 28 to September 2, 2000) WCW title change of the week : Kevin Nash wins the WCW title (Nitro). Steiner was the enforcer at ringside and Jeff Jarrett the guest referee. Early on the show Russo told the audience that "the band was back together". This was preceded by a montage of the glorious nWo 2000 days. They don't use the name anymore but that's the idea. So, during the match Jeff Jarrett acts in a odd way, basically preventing Russo from interfering and calls it right down the middle, to the point Russo was screaming about what a traitor Jarrett was. At first I thought it was gonna be one of those hilarious "team breaks up after one week" deals, but I figured soon enough that it was gonna go in the classic direction of the swerve. And swerve it was, at the end Jarrett busted a guitar on Booker T, and Nash won the title. Match was ok, Nash still bumps really well and made Booker look good. Madden was particulary unbearable here. Well, he's always unbearable, but that match was an apex of annoyance. Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. & Juventud Guerrera vs Mark Jindrak & Sean O'Haire (Thunder). Damn, Rey & Juvy are making these guys look a million times better than they are. Some cool double power spots, nice big men vs small men dynamic, they kept things moving so the greenhorns don't get lost. I enjoy this feud a lot more than I thought I would, the Animals as pure babyface are right where they should be. On Nitro they had a 5 persons elimination match against the NBT, ending with 8 guys getting counted out to leave Mike Sanders and Tygress alone in the ring. Sanders actually bumped and showed ass really well for Tygress, before doing his finisher on her. Beating up women is fun. But hey, it was a fun match too. Woman kidnapping angle of the week : Lance Storm kidnaps Major Gunns (Nitro). Team Canada wins a "Prisonner of war" match against the MIA when Sgt. Awoll is put through a table (that giant doofus falls on a table every week it seems nowadays), so Storm storms off with the blonde bimbo. She's now supposed to be part of Team Canada, but of course on Thunder she would tear apart her Canada shirt to show her USA bra and cost Storm the victory. Why in the hell would you want to carry around someone who's gonna play against you anyway ? Storm was efficient enough on his own, he didn't need a bimbo like he did in ECW (where he really wasn't showing much presence at all). Random Bret Hart appearance of the week : Bret Hart swerves Goldberg in the desert (Nitro) Goldberg had dragged Vince Russo in the desert to beat him up and bury him alive (yeah, I know...), and all of a sudden Bret Hart shows up, in a very rushed and badly produced vignette. At first he convinces Goldie that no-one hates Russo more than him, dropping "Montreal" and "Survivor Series" again, but of course it's a swerve, and Bret attacks Goldie with a shovel. Hey, Bret was part of nWo 2000, so that kinda make sense. It's still stupid as hell. C-show match of the week : Elix Skipper vs Chris Harris : solid cruiserweight match that actually gets some good heat thanks to the basic Canada vs USA dynamic. Harris definitly shows potential, and Skipper is a good little grating character. I dig that Matrix spot he does, it usually comes off way less awkward than it should. Stupid bump of the week : Crowbar gets bodyslammed from the balcony through a table by Shane Douglas (Nitro). All because Douglas challenged Kidman to a scaffold match at the PPV. There's exactly zero reasons for Crowbar to jump on Douglas from nowhere, except from the fact he's the only guy crazy or dumb enough to take that kind of bump. They work Daffney & Ozzie into the deal, as Crowbar getting distracted ends up being why he gets thrown off the balcony. The followup of the angle is better as Douglas, pumped up as all hell, challenges anyone in the locker room. Of course Goldberg walks to the ring. The way Douglas sells it is classic. Spear, jackhammer, Russo you're next. Good stuff. Promo of the week : Paul Orndorff (Thunder). Sit down interview with Orndorff, who is being ridiculed backstage by his former students. Orndorff is outraged as he hears the news for the first time. Good, solid old-school promo, the kind of serious stuff very few seems to be able to do anymore. The followup will be a arm-wrestling match against Sean Stasiak where Orndorff, looking all ripped-up, sucker punches the young punk and sends all the NBT packing with the help of a chair. Good stuff. Sadly it won't end well for Paul. Funny line of the week : "And no one remembers the previous four". Stevie Ray (Thunder). Just after Nash said he was the WCW champ for the 5th time. I dunno, it kinda cracked me up. Damn, why can't Stevie Ray be on Nitro and PPV's too ? He's more enjoyable than he ever was, and found his pace pretty quickly on color commentary. Same thing can be said about Konnan who's enjoyable each time he's announcing a Filthy Animals match,mixing insults at his opponents and insightful, more serious classic wrestling announcing. Kinda odd for me to say that I enjoy Stevie Ray & Konnan a lot these days. More Vamp & Sting crap. This feud never, ever ends and refuses to even progess one way or another. Muta looks more miserable than when he had to do the job for Takada at the Tokyo Dome in 96. Tank Abbott and 3-Count are no more, and I wonder if that's not the end of Tank period. Well, it was time to move on. The Jung Dragons are trained by Leia Meow, whose playing a SM mistress character. Won't complain about her look. The Cat is just as good cutting serious babyface promos as he was playing chickenshit heel. Miss Jones is hot as hell. They got a good beating on Thunder, including Jarrett crashing a guitar on Miss Jones, because woman abuse is always fun, and really fresh at this point too. Mike Awesome is wearing a 70's leisure suit. Well, it's less horrid than the Fat Chick Thrilla, but he's clearly the wrong guy for that gimmick. Awesome was a killing machine and that's it. Well, at least the idea of Nash/Steiner/Jarrett & the NTB vs Goldberg/The Cat/Booker/Awesome/Vito & Filthy Animals sounds rather decent as far as heel/face structure. No more flagrant miscast. Next week is the Wargames edition of Nitro, and the following has David Flair & Miss Hancock's wedding. Am I really obligated to go through this ? Really ? Awwww fuck me.

WEEK 86 (August 21 to 26, 2000) Match of the week : Filthy Animals vs Natural Born Thrillaz (Nitro). Surprisingly enjoyable considering I don't care at all about the NBT greenhorns, but Rey and Juvy are the perfect opponents for them, making their power and athletic offense look great. Mike Sanders is head and shoulders above the rest of his group, Reno excluded. He cut a good promo beforehand introducing the new stable, and his charisma and promo skills are enough to make me hope it'll be kinda fun. Post match, O'Haire does his swanton dive on Tygress. Abusing women will be the thematic of this week. Woman abuse angle of the week : Scott Steiner kidnapps Goldberg's girlfriend (Nitro). How many woman kidnapping can Russo write already ? This guy not only sucks, but he has about three "ideas" at best : shoot promos, kidnapping and abusing women and swerves. The killer point here is that the announcers act like Steiner is a monster despite not doing anything physical to Beth (not until the end at least), while the previous week had babyface Goldberg (yeah, the heel turn ended in a blur like most turn do with Russo since he doesn't understand the concept of heel and faces) jackhammering Midajah through a table. What a babyface. So yeah, really, Steiner was all but justified here, and he actually didn't hurt Beth. Well, until he put her in the Steiner recliner that is, making Goldie who was handcuffed watch the horror (and I don't mean the usual terrible execution of the hold). So yeah, two weeks of both heels and babyface abusing women. Chauvinistic ass-backward interview of the week : Mike Tenay calls Midajah "eye candy" (Thunder) One of those creepy Tenay interview that are half-funny because of the way Tenay acts. Midajah is at home injured, and she talks just like a babyface would, about getting more involved and wanting to show that woman have a place in wrestling other than just showing their bodies (with direct refereces to those who are doing the Playboy deal). And Tenay acts like a chauvinistic pig, patronizing her and telling her she's basically nothing but Steiner's eye candy. The whole thing is just ass-backward, as Midajah is supposed to be the evil valet of the most eveil heel on the roster, yet she comes off like a babyface while Tenay (who has every right to show no mercy to her since he was almost killed by her man a few weeks before) comes off like a heel. Another sign of complete and total lack of understanding of pro-wrestling by that idiot Russo. The best part is Tenay calling Midajah "honey" as he leaves the room. Midajah comes off uncharismatic and really isn't particulary attractive either (looks way older than she probably was, due to way too much makeup or bad surgery, or both). I miss Shakira, who was the only freak that had a character and who looked wonderful to boot. Comeback of the week : Leia Meow takes the Jung Dragons under her wings (Thunder). I wonder if she was paid to do nothing during all those months, or if she trained at the Power Plant. Anyway, more valet, but at least she won't be involved in stupid TV drama angle not catfighty feuds, so I can live with it. Spotfest of the week : Crowbar vs Reno (Thunder). Nice spotfest match, Reno is a nice little buzzsaw. The storyline here is that Crowbar is in love with Daffney but hasn't told her yet. And now he's dejected because she told him before the match she met the perfect man for her. Late in the match, a guy shows up and he looks exactly like Crowbar. Get it ? Yeah, those girls are stupid hoes who can't see love when it's right in front of them. I have no idea who plays the part of Crowbar's lookalike. I like Daffney, but this is another stupid angle, and a rather misogynistic one again if you think about it. So much useless feud son TV. Vampiro and the ICP are the Dark Carnival again. Well, that beats the gothic shit he's been doing for months now. Called Sting "Steve Borden the actor who plays the role of Sting" on Thunder. Shooty ! When is this feud gonna die ? Seriously ? I remember reading that Muta hated his WCW stint so much that it played a part in him totally revinventing himself in 2001. Well, that's the only positive I can think of being settled with Vamp & ICP. The Harris Boys are back on my TV, which allows me to fast-forward even more stuff. Bizarre angle on Thunder where the entire roster wanted Disco Inferno to be fired by The Cat. I have no idea. Norman Smiley is doing the Mickey Whipreck reluctant champion deal, but it's not half as funny or good. I just realized that limo driver M.I. Smooth is actually Ice Train. I had no idea this guy was still employed. Amazing. Lance Storm keeps his belt thanks to Elix Skipper being a sneaky bastard, and it seems like they are gonna move into a feud with Gen. Rection, which doesn't sound good to me. I never cared for Hugh Morrus, who apart from being a good bumper was never much of a worker, and the MIA gimmick is crap. Kwee-Wee is now with Paisley. So we get more catfights with Major Guns. Yawn. The hottest girl on TV is now officially Miss Jones, The Cat's assistant.

The Rockers boots on that picture remind me of the opening credits of Saved By the Bell. The early to mid 90's were probably the worst era ever fashion wise. Yes, even worst than the 80's in retrospect.

You're crazy. LCO had the greatest outfits ever (I could quote Dean on that one, but I won't) and Cuty's black vinyl outfit was bitchy. Only Takako's color scheme made her look like a giant strawberry/pistachio ice-cream.

And this guy pretended he was mad at Goldust for fondling him ? Please...

During my ECW watch, I never got tired of Sabu. Never. He's a fascinating guy to watch for me. Sure, his matches can end up like total trainwrecks, but it's also part of the appeal. He's one of the most unique wrestler I've seen. He always tried new things and never got complacent, you can see him evolve and get better during his entire ECW stint. RVD sucks. Superb athlete, shitty worker, unbearable character. Fonzie made him tolerable for a while by jumping around like a fool and somewhat making sense out of those ridiculous chair spots, but really I'd be happy to never watch a RVD match in my like at this point.

WEEK 85 (August 14 to 19, 2000) Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. & Juventud Guerrera & Disco Inferno vs Jung Dragons (Worldwide). The show is a few weeks behind in terms of storylines, and considering how fast things change now, it's kinda awkward. So the Animals are still heelish here, whereas they turned babyface de facto this week on the main shows. I like the stable, although thus far they have been fed shitty feuds and matches. So here we get a nice cruiserweight style sprint with crisp work from Rey and Hayashi, and the rest of them go along for the ride. Konnan has been regularly entertaining at the announcing booth, much more than he was in the ring. He should replace that useless fuck Madden yesterday. Reminds me the old random mexican sprints you'd get on Thunder in 98, with some nice flying around, impressive dives and a few bits of comedy. Rematch of the week : Booker T vs Jeff Jarrett (Nitro). The few people who bought the PPV's much be glad to see they get the rematch on fee TV the very next day. And it's a much better match to boot. Short TV match suits these two much better than failed epic main-event. The knee isn't a factor before the very end, leading to Jarrett almost winning, only to be beat up by Goldberg, who's going after Russo. Worker-who-gets-used-only-a-week of the week : Carl Oulette (Nitro / Thunder). So yeah, Lance Storm has formed Team Canada, a would-be-cool stable with Elix Skipper and Carl Oulette who showed up from nowhere to help Storm in his rematch with Mike Awesome (yes, another PPV rematch straight on free TV). Happy to see Oulette get used. So Lance gives the cruiserwight title to Skipper and the hardcore title to Oulette, because titles don't mean shit of course. What's sad is that Oulette is only used because they are in Canada for the tapings, he won't be around anymore after that week. He loses the hardcore title to Norman Smiley (who doesn't want it.... mkay, so why was he involved in this match anyway ?), and then does a clean job to Big Vito on Thunder. Missed opportunity. Oulette was an interesting spot worker with a singular look, he could have been a nice Buzz Sawyer like figure in Team Canada. Between his short appearance in WWF, ECW, WCW and All Japan, Oulette was the most elusive forgotten worker of the late 90's/early00's. New stable formation of the week : Mark Jindrak, Sean O'Hare, Perfect Event, Reno & Mike Sanders (Nitro / Thunder). On Nitro the four uncharismatic musclehead jump in to help Reno against Kidman & Vito, and left the ring with him, ending the Douglas / Reno partnership. On Thunder, Mike Sanders who was trying to get on the cool side of the Filthy Animals while they were facing Jindrak & O'Haire, turned on them and finally the six young guys beat up everybody. Well, at least this is fresh, and I like Sanders & Reno, but the four other guy really have showed me nothing I want to see, so I'm not expecting anything that good from this stable. Misogynic angle of the week : Miss Hancock is pregnant but she's still a golddigger cunt (Thunder) Before he could propose to Miss Hancock, David Flair gets beat up by the MIA (yawn), so afterward Miss Hancock goes into David's pocket to find the ring, which doens't seem to be good enough for her, but she still takes it and dances over David's limp body. How nice. Useless feud of the week : Kronik vs Harris Boys (Nitro). Yeah, the Harris Boys showed up at the PPV. Here are two guys I really didn't want to see back on my TV. Well, at least they are feuding with Kronik, so they won't drag down two good workers I care about at least. WTF moment of the week : The Artist doing a Raven impersonnation (Worldwide). Complete with Mr Wrestling II kneelift. I have no idea what the hell is going on here. So, Skipper is the new cruiserweight champ as he was given the belt, Rey & Juvy are the new tag champs as they beat Vamp & Muta on Nitro. Russo is back on TV, calling out Goldberg and making idiotic shooty-shooty remarks like "If this was real, Goldberg thinks he could beat anybody.". If this was real ? Really ? Anyway, so Russo wants to fire Goldberg but can't apparently. And Goldie is going after him. On Thunder Nash attacked Booker T after cutting a "I respect you" promo, so I guess it's a heel turn of sort. Or not, who knows anymore ? This was marginally better than the godawful product of the last few weeks, witha few watchable match and some more fresher stuff.