El-P

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.

Years ago I would have said Eaton, whom I still consider one of the very best. But I've seen way too much Ricky basically carrying stuff solo in SMW, being super efficient in angles, cutting super strong promos and showing he was still an awesome worker by mid-90's to still give the nod to Eaton, whose biggest flaw is the lack of promo skills. Also, Ricky Morton is a better heel than Eaton is a babyface. So yeah, Morton for me, but I love both, obviously.

I can garantee you I watch the most bad wrestling per week around this place, if anything.

His reactions to the Wrestlerock Rumble are classic. The Dairy Queen Incident is pretty damn funny too. Those Cornette shoots are gold.

Damn, I had a dream last night where I actually talked with Jim Ross about his retirement, the most stressful period in his life (WCW ? WWF ? Mid-South ?), his collection of hats (WTF ?) and my favourite JR call ever, which was something to the effect of "Damn you Austin ! Dam you to hell !", which I'm pretty sure never actually happened. And JR was grumpy but pretty cool after we broke the ice.

Very cool pics FLIK.

PPV 20 : New Blood Rising "What are they gonna do now ? Improvise ?" match of the night : Goldberg vs Kevin Nash vs Scott Steiner. I'll make it short. At one point, Goldie is set up for the jacknife, he just pushes Nash away and leaves the ring, while Russo is screaming to get his ass back in the ring. Because your see, he's *not following the script*. Hence the Tony Schiavone comment I quoted. I fast forwarded through the rest of this abortion. Fuck you Russo, fuck you very much. Would-be match of the night ruined by stupid gimmick : Lance Storm vs Mike Awesome. This could have been really good to excellent, really. These two cliqued right away. The work here is the crispest of the whole show, Lance makes Awesome's offense look killer and Awesome works smoothly, including saving a botched spot where he stumbled from the top rope yet managed to fall on his feet and run to lariat the hell out of Storm. But still, we have to have a stupid gimmick so we get Jacques Rougeau (to the vast disapointment of the fans who were chanting "We want Bret" all night long) making rules on the fly to save Lance's ass. They work the best they can around it and actually do the best job possible with such an awkward heel gimmick, but it still kills the pace of the match and turns it into some kind of joke. Bret Hart showed up afterward. Biggest pop of the night. They couldn't have Bret Hart do the ridiculous heel stuff, but he still embraced with Rougeau and Storm afterward. It's amazing that the Hart vs US angle from 1997 was basically still resonnating with Canadian audience in 2000, as they were totally cheering the heel bullshit. Match of the night by default : Shane Douglas vs Kidman. So there it is, since Awesome vs Storm was ruined by a stupid gimmick, this is the most solid match of the night, entirely thanks to Shane Douglas who works maybe his best stuff since his Justin Credible PPV match in ECW in 1999. Too bad Kidman is a sloppy-ass babyface, otherwise it could have been really good. It's interesting also to see that Kidman rushes his comeback so badly that the heat the match had until that point totally dies down until the finish, which is kinda sad for Douglas who was getting good reactions. It's a strap match BTW, but not a "touch 4 corners" strap match, just a "strap the shit out of your opponent" match. Mark Madden, who's torturous to listen too, thinks he's probably pretty damn smart saying "She's turning heel" when Torrie Wilson grabs her shoe to hit Kidman. Yawn. Post match sees a pretty nice beatdown and hanging (although the announcers are just ridiculous implying Douglas was actively trying to kill Kidman) then a short Reno vs Vito exchange. Spotfest of the night : Jung Dragons vs 3-Count. I find this combination much more fun than the vastly overrated "classics" that the Hardys/E&C/Dudleys were having in the WWF at the same time. It's totally goofy and full of huge spots, but it is paced like a lucharesu match. Tank Abbott goofying at ringside is always enjoyable. The only bad thing about this match is that two items were suspended above the ring, the golden record and the recording contract, and it isn't clear what the goal is. Apparently only the recording contract mattered since 3-Count finally won the match. Fun opener. Really ? This is the main event ? match of the night : Jeff Jarrett vs Booker T. Micheal Buffer introducing Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair or Randy Savage had a big feel to it. Micheal Buffer introducing Jeff Jarrett and Booker T just seems like a WTF moment. This is a very mediocre TV title level match blown up to main event status by virtue of using usual Attitude era bullshit like a ton of ref bumps and garbage spots. Doesn't work either. Earlier in the show Jeff Jarrett embushed Booker in his car and slapped the door on his already injured knee, Larry Z. on Barry Windham style. You'd think Booker T would figure out milking the hell out of his injury would be the only way to go, especially when Jarrett actually works on his knee (in a very boring, not crisp and dull way, but still). Nope. Booker will basically never sell his knee after the beatdown it took during the match. Man, Booker sucks. Jarrett doesn't look that good either. They fuck up a neckbreaker spot pretty horridly at the end. Blah. Clusterfuck of the night : Kronik vs Jindrak & O'Hare vs Perfect Event vs M.I.A. With special referee Disco Inferno and Rey, Tygress & Juvy getting involved freely as they also are enforcement referees. Yep, four actual referees in a match. Heel referees. So, there's an alliance of sorts between the Perfect Event and the two other greenhorns. Whatever. The highlight is Konnan making fun of them on commentary. The lowlight is Mark Madden being just unbearable. He's also calling Konnan "Carlos", because he's shooting I guess. Just whatever. Vamp & Muta get involved, because we don't have enough outside people apparently, and they get a title shot later against Kronik. This match sucked too BTW. Really embarrassing match of the night : Miss Hancock vs Major Guns. In the mud. Hancok has pain in her tummy. Goes to the hospital. You'll guess the rest. Ok, this is enough. There was also the Judy Bagwell on a forklift match, which was as "good" as a Bagwell match could be. David Arquette showed up. For a second or two I thought he was gonna swerve everyone again and turn on Kanyon, but no such luck. A useless Cat vs Muta four minutes match to kill time, a useless two minutes Sting vs Demon match to go to the bathroom. Basically, this PPV was shit after the opener. Douglas vs Kidman was decent thanks to Douglas, and the promise of Reno vs Vito looks good enough, and Lance vs Awesome was as "good" as it could in the circumstances, but it was still a ruined opportunity to have a real strong match. Two more months of Russo, I have no desire to watch WCW anymore at this point, it's 90% complete shit. It's very obvious why nobody was buying the PPV's anymore. Still waiting for the "good stuff". I don't see it coming yet.

Indeed.

Dustin wins easily to me, on the strenght of his WCW run alone. Taker's big time main events have been ridiculously overrated over the years. My two favourite WWF gimmicks too, I *loved* them back in 1996. I got tired of Taker eventually, and Goldust sadly got toned down way too quickly, but they have been the best productions of the WWF machine in term of pure comics character. Best music themes, best light shows etc...

Totally agree with Jerry and Matt's points on Okerlund.

The French announcing scene was pretty bad during the Monday Night Wars. Bondin & Letourneur were terrible, and on the WWF side, Rougeau and Brassard really weren't much better at this point. I all but gave up on French broadcast in 1997, as I switched to satellite English channels that year. I'm really a product of the Guy Hauray / Eddie Carpentier announcing team, they were probably half of why I became a wrestling fan to begin with. Blondin has been doing TNA since the beginning ? Holy shit ! He must have gone insane by now...

Really ? Who were the announcers then ? I remember Marc Blondin and his acolyte during the Nitro glory days, and they weren't good. WEEK 84 (August 7 to 12, 2000) Match of the week : Lance Storm vs Booker T (Nitro). Not very good, but at least pretty dynamic thanks to Storm. It highlights the fact Booker T works like a robot and really hasn't showed zilch in the ring since his feud with Benoit in 1998. The whole story about Booker these days is that he's got a week knee, complete with a brace. Add the fact Lance Storm wins every match with a half-crab, and you've got a super simple story to tell, even in a rushed Russo-era Nitro style match. So we get Lance putting his hold on Booker's week knee, we get Booker being the very first not to submit and get to the ropes, and then Booker doesn't sell his knee, not for half a second. And he does the longest delayed ax kick ever to boot, in a classic RVD waste your time and telegraph your spot moment. I fail to see what anybody saw in Booker as a worker at one point. Hardcore match of the week : Mike Sanders vs Norman Smiley (Thunder). Fun match with some good spots involving Sanders, whose already much better on the mic and in the ring than any of the "young lions" that have been pushed in the previoous month. The new rules states you have to win inside teh ring, which makes the whole idea of brawling backstage stupid. We get an idiotic spot with Jarrett breaking a guitar for no reason on Norman Smiley, but apart from that spot, this was pretty fun. Beatdown of the week : Reno beats up Kidman (Thunder). I already enjoy that Reno guy. Good bumper it seems, some impressive and crisp looking offense (which is refreshing). Kidman I couldn't care less at this point, and he has regressed as a worker since his overrated cruiserweight days, but hey, he can take a beating. We get the involvment of yet *another* girl, a new Nitro Girl who's suppsed to be Reno's girlfriend but who has been flirting with Kidman. This is insane, there's a woman involved in about every angle at this point, and they are all bimbos/whores/cunts/fat-girl-you-can-make-fun-of. Reno and Douglas beats up Kidman after the match, and Big Vito runs in to save his ass, because apparently he's got an issue with Reno. Ok, I like Vito too, so that could lead to something good. Probably won't though. Shoot interview of the week : Vince Russo (Nitro). If you're heard any interview of Russo in the past 13 years, this is exactly the same stuff. Made WWF successful, got screwed by politics in the back in WCW, cares about all the young talent here, doesn't want to be on TV because he's not "one of the boys" and only did it because it was needed. And he's playing the shoot card, so he's out of character and comes off as a babyface. Crap On-a-pole match of the week : Scott Steiner vs Sting. (Nitro). Lead pipe on-a-pole match, because Steiner is using a lead pipe now (which also happens to be Crowbar's gimmick). Same finish as last week's match : ref gets bumped, the heels gets help and when the ref gets up the heel got the object in hands so he wins the match. How creative. Swerve of the week : Fat girl Heidi is Canadian (Thunder). So she screws Mike Awesome in a flag vs flag match against Lance Storm. Man, that is more creative and interesting booking. Russo finally did it, he also turned this feud into complete bullshit. Well done. And we also got Miss Hancock and Major Guns in a mud pit, Kanyon & Mark Madden vs Bagwell & Gene Okerlund, more and more Vampiro crap, more multi team matches with Kronik, more bad Jeff Jarrett promos with multiple use of the word slapnutz. The build to this PPV has been godawful, I swear these few weeks following the US tournament show were some of the most boring and horrid I've ever scene. Just eye gouging stuff.

I agree 100% with this list. And yeah, Dan Kroffat (Furnas I wouldn't consider him a great worker), Buzz Sawyer. First name that comes to my mind was Yumi Fukawa, for whatever reason. Tremendous worker in ARSION, who never got past the lower half of the undercard. Hiromi Yagi has to be there too.

Luke was 42 and Butch 45 when they jumped to WWF. Their careers was behind them already. They made a great move by jumping to WWF and becoming the Bushwhackers.