El-P

Brian Pillman in WCW. Ridiculously over, yet never pushed seriously. Yumi Fukawa in ARSION. Their audience *loved* Fukawa. She never went past mid-card.

Not familiar with *Da business* I'd guess.

DANGAN !

Yep. Liger won it back the next week from... Psychosis. He was sent by NJ to work for WCW, I don't think he had much choice. I think I remember hearing New Japan was really pissed about it though, hence the fact they never recognized it. FWIW, when Muta was sent to WCW in 2000, he also had to deal with the shit Russo had him do and hated every minute of it.

I believe they started the gimmick of the lights going down during the Taker vs Taker match at SummerlSlam 94, for the real Undertaker only. They really began using light shows at WM 10.

Ugh... I remember that Shoot Interview he did where he talked about him running this "family operated" wrestling promotion with his daughter... Awful awful stuff. Piece of garbage.

WEEK 48 ( November 29 to December 4, 1999) Match of the week by default : Jushin Liger vs Chris Benoit (Thunder). Yeah, by default, as they work a decent little Thunder match while Juvy is on commentary talking nonsense and dropping The Rock and Chris Jericho's catchphrases. Because you see, Juvy won the IWGP title from Liger on Nitro, and injured his left arm in the process. The end of the match sees La Parka & Psychosis jump on Benoit & Liger. Van you picture the great match these four could have together, in a non-retarded wrestling comapny ? Insulting match of the week : Juvy wins the IWGP title by crashing a bottle of tequila over Jushin Liger's head (Nitro). I have no word. Oh, yes I have, the entire match was an afterthought, the main thing was Brad Armstrong on commentary doing the awful Buzzkill gimmick, refering to "Big Brother". On Thunder he would come out totally imitating his brother, complete with the NAO copycat music theme. Embarrassing on all front. Insulting spot of the week : The Outsiders dropping the TV title belt in the trash can (Nitro). Yeah, why not. It's our product and our history, but what the hell, titles don't mean anything, right ? This is shit, and it's not even a meaningfull heel action, it's just fucking with WCW wrestling fans. Funny spot of the week : Liz & Lex Luger in the mud (Nitro). So they had a mud pit, and Luger gently dropped Liz in it as a payback for the PPV screw up. The best part is of course Sting showing up behind Luger and pushing it into the mud. Luger is a trooper and finds ways to take like five bumps back into the pit. Liz fell on her ass as she got out, and Sting kinda helped her walk backstage. Awful gimmick matches of the week : Dr. Death vs Jerry Only / Outsiders vs Goldberg & Sid Vicious vs Bret Hart & Chris Benoit, cage matches (Nitro). The first one is a complete abortion, with BBQ sauce dropped on Oklahoma and shit like that. The second one in boring as all hell, nobody does anything until Jeff Jarrett shows up (because anyone can interfere in a cage match, of course), it all turns into a big schmozz and Benoit, you guessed it, does the headdrop from the top of the cage. Again. Can we somewhat blame Vince Russo for Benoit losing his brain or is it pushing it way too far ? I'm tempted though... Misogynistic bullshit and woman abuses of the week : Juvy "fucking" a fat girl from behind, Nitro Girls catfights, Jeff Jarrett busting a guitar on Mona, Ronda Singh in the mud pit with Roddy Piper, David Flair abusing Symphony (Nitro/Thunder). Pick your one. The worst by far was Juvy "reviving" that fat girl (I believe it was Leilani Kai but I'm not sure) after she choked eating some stuff form the catering table, and mimicking fucking her from behind. It went forever and was really really embarrasing. Ok, this week was really atrocious, and would be enough to throw the towel. The women stuff were just unseasy to watch at some point, as there were so many humiliating, abusing situations that my jaw dropped after a while. I don't put Liz in the mud with the rest since Luger really saved it by taking most of the attention and being the focus of the angle, but the other stuff... We know now that Madusa is actually manipulating Karagias (so she's a whore, basically, but it's a heel move, I guess) to guess a cruiserweight title match at Starrcade. Wait, isn't she, you know, a woman ? Who cares at this stage. Another really fucking idiotic angle is the Revolution taking their independance and bashing the USA, so we have to get more janitor dressed Duggan on TV. Great.... I'll pass on the whole Disco & Lash screwing around with Johnny thz Bull & Big Vito, or on Norman's Smiley's matches. Fit Finlay came back and cut off Brian Knobbs' mullet. This week was 95% complete shit, really. Vince Russo Tally Title changes : 12 Swerves : 3 Special gimmick matches on free TV : 11 On-a-pole matches : 2 WWF references : 21 Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 22 Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 18

WEEK 47 (November 22 to 27, 1999) Match of the week : Bret Hart vs Jeff Jarrett (Nitro). Earlier on, Jarrett had attacked Bret and stole the title belt. Didn't take long. This is solid brawling style. Jarrett channels Lawler at times with excellent looking fistdrops on the announcer's table. Didn't hurt that Bret's selling made them look awesome. Jarrett doesn't belong in the main event, at least not until he fucking gets over to that point, but as a worker he's right there, I'm really enjoying his work thus far, although I enjoy his earlier more chickenshit style more. Ends when Dustin Rhodes ko's Jarrett while Creative Control is being chased off by the referee. Bret's reaction to Jarrett being KO is pretty nice, going for teh sharpshooter but instead just pinning the guy with a "hey, whatever" expression. Awful special gimmick match of the week : International flag match : Dean Malenko vs Chris Benoit (Nitro). The winner must get his own flag. Dean goes for the Canadian flag because he wants to burn it down. At one point Benoit gets the gas can and the announcer wonder if he's gonna set Malenko on fire. Yawn.... Big schmozz, the Revolution jumps in, threaten to burn both the Canadian and US flag alltogether, but Bret saves the day and raises the US flag (while Benoit gets the Canadian one). This Benoit vs Malenko feud is an abomination. Goofy angle of the week : Liz, Meng and a shark cage (Nitro). Luger "books" a match between Liz and Meng to get revenge on Liz who screwed up at the PPV. Liz gets locks herself into a shark cage. Luger talks her into giving him the key, then betrays her and bring her into the ring with a forklift. This is goofy as hell. Meng acts like a beast trying to get into the cage until Luger actually offers him the key, while looking afraid as hell (Luger is really funny). Meng gets the claw on Luger and still tries to destroy the shark cage instead of using the key. The Sting runs in, beats up Meng with a baseball bat and frees Liz. Later that night, Meng gets Sting in a no DQ match. Liz wants to help Sting back with some mace, but Sting will have none of this, as he doesn't trust her. Luger shows up, Sting ends up in the claw, Liz wants to console him but he pushes her away. Although it doesn't deliver much in term of good matches, I enjoy this whole feud, Luger is excellent doing the funny chickenshit, Liz is hot as hell and does her job well, and Sting is actually quite good too. Monster main event of the week : Outsiders vs Goldberg & Sid Vicious (Nitro). Goldie was supposed to get a surprise partner. When Sid shows up behind him, the announcer act like he's allied with the Outsiders, forgetting the storylines of the previous weeks. Anyway, this is pretty decent considering who's involved, four big guys working a classic (meaning "traditionnal") tag match complete with fake hot tag and getting some heat on Goldie before the double spear. Nash bumps extremely well for Goldie's offense. Sid is comical. Nice enough stuff, really. Debuts of the week : Nitro Girl Skye, Johnny the Bull, Big Vito, Symphony (Nitro) Goofy skits galore backstage with the mafiosi, a swerve heel turn from Skye/Stacy Keibler (yeah, really) and Symphony (not named, she was Ryan "slap me" Shamrock) standing next to the Maestro playing the piano during every backstage segment (until David Flair destroys it in an access of crazed rage). Cruiserweight match of the week : Juventud Guerrera vs Villano IV (Saturday Night) These guys are releguated to opening the C-show, with a nice little match. It's both refreshing and sad. Let's split a faction up of the week : The Filthy Animals are falling apart (Nitro). During a tag match, Kidman sees Eddie fooling around with Torrie on the screens (Why ? Because.) Gets jealous, blah blah blah. They have a match, Eddie beats up Kidman pretty good, meanwhile the Revolution jump on Konnan and injure his right arm. Torrie, trting to signal it to Kidman prevents him from doing his finisher on Eddie. Eddie takes control and frogsplashes Kidman. Leading to the : Misogynistic line of the week : "I don't want to blame one person, but a woman has split up the Filthy Animals." Tony Schiavone. Wait, what ? The Revolution fuked up both Rey and Konnan and Kidman just acted like a stupid macho fool when Torrie and Eddie were doing nothing bad, but a *woman* split up the team ? Glorious. Really sums up Russo's way of treating women. What a loser. Funniest line of the week : "Is that supposed to hurt ?" Scott Hudson after Juvy did a People's elbow on Villano IV. So, Creative Control won the tag team titles, Russo had a hard-on for these two stiffs. Curt Hennig swerved Buff Bagwell and aligned himself with the Powers to Be. Midnight is still popping up to help Booker T. Tons of shitty backstage vignette, the worst being Duggan's as a janitor. Roddy Piper made a comeback but the Powers to Be made him a lowly referee. We're going toward a babyface match between Bret and Goldberg at Starrcade. Most of the undercard is FF material at this point, really, all the titles are dead except the world title. Luger/Sting/Liz are the most entertaining part of this wretched product angle wise. Vince Russo Tally Title changes : 11 Swerves : 3 Special gimmick matches on free TV : 9 On-a-pole matches : 2 WWF references : 18 Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 15 Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 17

You're not the only one : Line of the night : "Saginaw, Michigan !" Shane Douglas adressing the fans, asking them if they were ready for a Revolution. They were in Winston-Salem, NC. (Fall Brawl 1999)

PPV 11 : Mayhem 1999 Match of the night : Bret Hart vs Chris Benoit. If there's one thing positive to say about Russo, and believe me, it's a hard task, is that by putting these two at the top of a PPV, he indeed marked a difference with pretty much all WCW PPV since, well, since Hogan came in. This was extremely refreshing and was made to look like a big deal, with the long backstage walks (a la WWF), the screwjob frights essentially playing no role in the final decision (first Malenko ridiculously dressed like a Canadian clown or something, then the Outsiders, chased away by Goldberg), and the post-match celebration with Bret's family joigning him in the ring. It's also the best WCW main event PPV match since probably DDP vs Golderg in 98, ot even DDP vs Savage in 97. Too much back and forth to really be that great of a match, lackinga strong dynamic or storytelling to favour pure mechanic work, but in that respect it was head and shoulders abover everthing else in the company. My main issue is that there was no real great near falls, and Benoit never looked really close to win the title (maybe once after the flying headdrop). Anyway, this is very good, and Bret sold winning the WCW title as something really important, so it looked like it was. Honorable mention of the night : Jeff Jarrett vs Chris Benoit. Say what you will about Jarrett, but he's clearly one of the most solid worker in the company already, it's very obvious here. Doesn't get too much time, but it's really good for what it is. Decent match of the night : Curt Hennig vs Buff Bagwell. Not as good as the Benoit match on Thunder, but Hennig does a good job with Bagwell too. For a match that's supposed to be the last for one of these two, it totally lacks drama, showing the stip holds no water at all. Bagwell in particular shows no sign of concern whatsoever. Hennig brings some urgency to it though. He also does a decent job in the post-match looking like it's his last dance. Of course he would be back in the ring as soon as the next day. Bizarro match of the night : Goldberg vs Sid Vicious. Canada truly was bizarro world. Huge "Sid" chants. Huge "Goldberg sucks !" chants. Match is a complete throwaway. Sid is "better" as a babyface, but the match without any blood to make up for the lack of good work is nothing. Nitro segment match of the night : David Flair vs Kimberly. Why is this on PPV? Not much happens. Kim manipulates David a bit and takes away his protective cup. Kanyon jumps in, then DDP shows up. Okay. David Flair is a terrible performer. Arn Anderson jumps in the ring to protect him, then David Flair hits him in the back with his crowbar, because he's insane you know. Another long stretcher job. I swear there's a stretcher job every damn week. Disapointing match of the night : Lex Luger vs Meng. Yeah, disapointing because Luger has been really fun on TV. Meng no sell way too much for this to be anything more than a goofy match, with Luger wearing a neckbrace (again because of a fake injury). Bad timing at the end when Liz sprays Luger instead of Meng. It was kinda fun at times, but not as much as I thought it would. I blame Meng. Sting vs Bret was a watchable Nitro match, but the rest of the card was trash. The mixed tag elimination match was terrible, neither Torrie nor Asya belong in the ring. Berlyn vs Vampiro was awful and typical Russo overkill booking, with the Wall spliting from Berlyn and Oklahoma & Dr. Death at ringside taking all the attention. That joke wasn't that funny the first time around, it already overstayed its welcome. Doc attacks Vamp after the match. Disco vs Evan Karagias was bad. Karagias sucks. Brian Knobbs vs Norman Smiley was ridiculous, and I really don't like the whole Screaming Norman deal, so not for me. There was a double title match with Scott Hall defending the US & TV belts (yeah, he got the TV belt for whatever reason after Rick Steiner was injured by Sid...) against Booker T. Booker doesn't do shit for me at this point, and this was a Nitro match with Jarrett & CC running in, then Midnight making her grand and idiotic entrance with the lights going down and the gong. The main event and the few regular good little matches in the undercard saved it, but the more Russoiffic parts of the PPV were nothing more than glorified Nitro segments.

WEEK 46 (November 15 to 20, 1999) Match of the week : Goldberg vs Curt Hennig (Nitro). Hennig still tries to prevent from having to retire by not getting pinned, plus he can win a new contract if he beats Goldie, so he attacks him backstage during his long walk to the ring. They really beat the shit out of each other, and it's fun to see Hennig actually kicking some ass for once. Goldebg sells enough to make it seems like a brawl but not too much either to not look to vulnerable. Finally in the ring, Hennig does one slap to many which pisses off Goldie who puts him into a leg submission. Hennig taps out immediatly sensing bad things are coming up. He still saved his ass. Of course Goldberg still manages to spear and jackhammer him afterward. Good stuff. Honorable mention of the week : Chris Benoit vs Buff Bagwell (Thunder). This might be Bagwell's best match post-injury, for sure. Nothing special, but Benoit keeps the pace up and sells well for Bagwell''s limited offense. Some shenanigans by Hennig at ringside (him and Bagwell must face at the PPV with the loser being forced into retirement, yeah right) before Benoit makes Bagwell taps. Man, Bagwell sure fell down the drain quickly after the infamous Piper feud. Benoit also had a solid match with Scott Hall. Brawl of the week : Barbarian vs Jerry Flynn (Nitro). This is basically a boiler room match, because anything that was done in WWF must be done in WCW. Really stiff stuff, but they mostly use their fists and kicks, which makes it a hundred times better than the usual goofy hardcore stuff. Short and sweet, with Flynn surprisingly KOing Barbie. Special gimmick match of the week : House of pain match : Konnan & Eddie Guerrero vs Perry Saturn & Dean Malenko (Nitro). God this feud is rotten. This is a cage match with a bunch of handcuffs to which you have to attach your opponent with. Match lasts about 2 minutes or so before the Animals get handcuffed, then the Revolution handcuff Rey to the top of the cage and destroy his right knee. Rey must get a surgery. This is really awful. Best part was Saturn's promo before the match singing "Jump!" and making Malenko jump around with him. House of Pain you see... On the pole match + sleezy business of the week : Pinada on the pole match & Oklahoma (Nitro). So we get a racist cliché + Ed Ferrara making fun of JR which is amusing to some extent when he does the college sports bit and annoying Ross maneurisms but also pretty sleazy and totally counterproductive. Add to this that the pinata fell down about 30 seconds into the match, so the luchadors had no idea what to do with it and looked stupid. The only "positive" stuff about this whole embarrassing deal is Dr. Death throwing the luchadors around was a much better debut for him than anything he did in the WWF, for obvious reasons. Stiff, this is trash. Grudge match of the week : Lex Luger vs Sting (Nitro) Luger keeps in being quite entertaining. He offered Sting some flowers and also some brownies (with laxative, leading to a not funny at all vignette of Duggan stealing them and being sick as a dog later), to no effect, Sting kicks his ass and works his fake knee injury until it becomes a real one. Luger trips the referree while he's in the scorpion deathlock (which is a nice little chickenshit spot) and Liz maces Sting. Luger would have won if not for Meng who gets his revenge from a few weeks back and kills Luger. Fun stuff. Line of the week : "You're half the man I am. And I've got half the brain you do." Sid Vicious (Nitro). This is pretty legendary. To his credit, he stayed very serious while Nash & Hall were busting out in the ring, didn't blink and delivered the rest of his promo which was actually pretty decent since it was more of a serious babyface one. The line was one of the greatest fuck up you can think off though, especially since the whole thing about the Outsiders was saying Sid was an idiot. Since Russo is such a smart ass, they actually reshowed the fuck-up on Thunder in the video package for the PPV. What a bunch of... So, the final four are Jarrett, Sting, Benoit & Bret Hart, which means we have three babyfaces (including two über babyface since it's the first PPV in Canada for WCW) and the Chosen One. Russo sure wanted Jarrett to work the main event. The Revolution vs Filthy Animals is simply horrible. Totally ruined by rushing through gimmick matches every week on TV and involving Torrie and Asya as in-ring workers. What a waste of talent. Dean & Saturn vs Eddie & Kidman could have some really good match if given the time, but this is not what it's about. Berlyn vs Vampiro is too bad for Berlyn, as the seeds for a Wall puch are planted. Vamp got a bunch of anchors with the Misfits, who mean absolutely shit. Bagwell vs Hennig is decent on paper. Disco vs Evan look like it will be overwhelmed by out of the ring stuff, as they *already* tease that Madusa is fucking up with Evan's mind after *one* week of being together. Luger vs Meng sounds fun, because Luger has been the most fun character on the roster recently. Vince Russo Tally Title changes : 6 Swerves : 1 Special gimmick matches on free TV : 8 On-a-pole matches : 2 WWF references : 17 Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 13 Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 16

I love Woman, and she was easily the better promo, not to mention hot as hell, but Sherri was ridiculously good as a valet for Savage and DiBiase, she could add so much to matches. She was often the second best worker in the matches during that period.

Lawler was fine as a heel color guy, but really became unbearable during the Attitude Era. "Puppies !" was the beginning of the end.

Hum... not exactly what I just saw. Ferrara was doing the Bell's Palsy face because it was JR's face, but the entire act was all about mocking JR's annoucing gimmicks like talking about college sports, screaming stuff three times in a row, using words like sloberknockers and stuff like this (plus some more "insider stuff" like saying to Schiavone "The A-team is taking over"). I believe the BBQ sauce was being promoted by WWF at the time too. So yeah, the Bell's Palsy face was not pretty, but when you're doing an impersonation it goes with the territory.

You know what, I'm exactly at the point in my WCW watch when Oklahoma will show up. And although I still thinks it was a really petty move, really it wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things considering what JR agreed to let his co-workers do to him in term of humiliation. And when reading stuff like this, well, I guess making fun of Good ol' JR really was warranted.

Sounds like a perfect name for an artistic skater gimmick.

WEEK 45 (November 8 to 13, 1999) Shooty-shooty & WWF wink-wink promo of the week : Dustin Rhodes shoots (Nitro). The whole Seven character was a total Undertaker rip-off, but damn his intro was really creepy and looked pretty cool actually. I'm not so sure about his in-ring look. It doesn't matter anyway since that was a Bischoff (or Sullivan I guess) idea, so this goes down the drain in a classic shoot interview in which Dustin runs down the Powers To Be, Goldust (which "almost ruined his career"... uh... really ?) and WCW for kicking out his father after 20 years of good and loyal services. Total WWF referential interview, complete with Dustin adapting his Goldust catchphrase. As it's often the case with Dustin, he's turning complete dogshit material into something decent because he can be that solid on the stick, and it's the case here. The line about "dressing up like Uncle Fester to play trick or treats all year long" was delivered in a really funny way. Him coming back as plain Dustin Rhodes, with all his WCW history, was probably the best thing for him anyway. Complete overkill special gimmicks match of the week : Texas tornado ladder match with a special referee (Nitro). How can you not laugh at the absurdity of this ? This is Sid vs Bret Hart vs Goldberg vs Scott Hall for the US title, with Kevin Nash as the referee (the same Kevin Nash that was imitating the Grand Wizard earlier in the show). Ends up with a total screwjob too, with Bret winning the belt but Nash still giving it to his pal Scott Hall. Best character of the week : Lex Luger the greatest chickenshit ever (Nitro-Thunder) Luger is the most entertaining guy in the company. His chickenshit act is excellent. First we get an angle with Sting, who asks Luger to come down and explain his actions from the previous week. Liz shows up to "apologize" to Sting, but he isn't happy with it and basically intimidates her until Lex comes down to the ring. Lex cuts a very solid, apologetic promo, although it's obvious he's full of shit. Lex is pretty great here, being serious and all, pretty convincive yet acting annoyed at the crowd that sees through his shit. It fails miserably as Sting for once shows some brain and threatens him to not screw around with him. Later on Luger would run down the ring during an atrocious Sting vs Goldie match (which consisted in a prolonged sleeperhold from the get go) and "accidentaly" maced Sting. Bad execution here. The other good stuff was him faking a knee injury so he doesn't get to face Sid later in the show. He does the old-school wheelchair routine, but Sting comes down the ramp, chases Liz off and throws Luger into the ring. The funny thing is that despite being in the ring with freaking Sid, Luger *still* milks his fake injury for all its worth, like Sid was gonna show any mercy. Liz comes back to protect Luger, and he blatantly uses her as a shield. Great chickenshit stuff. Then it ends in a schmozz with Goldie spearing Sid, but the Luger hilarity doesn't end here as he offers his hand to Goldie !! Goldie helps him back up but immediately spears him. On Thunder Luger does another chickenshit promo pretending to be too injured to wrestler Kaz Hayashi. That is until Kaz calls him an actual "Chickenshit !". Luger waits for the right moment and destroys Hayashi, not looking injured at all. The killer is Liz whispering something to Luger's ears as he's celebrating, and Luger goes back to sell his "injury". I loved all that stuff. Most absurd finish ever of the week : A hardcore match taking place backstage ending up in a.... COUNT OUT !! (Nitro). Bam Bam vs Knobbs doing their usual hardcore stuff from the ring to the backstage area. Norman Smiley who's guest announcing actually follows them around, which is funny enough. When all of a sudden Kimberly shows up all panicky, as she's been stalked all night long by a crazed David Flair, and begs for Bam Bam's help. Nice continuity for once, as Bam Bam was a close friend of DDP in the Triad. Anyway, Bam Bam basically leaves the fight scene and the referee COUNTS HIM OUT !! WTF ????? My jaw dropped ! Best potential match of the week : Jeff Jarrett vs Curt Hennig (Nitro). The few minutes they were given shows that these two could have a very solid match in the right circumstances. Ends up with a nice touch when after Creative Control interfered to save Jarrett's ass, they put Hennig through the announcer's table and try to shoved him back into the ring, but Hennig hang on to the mats and barricades to get counted out and prevent an inevitable pinfall (remember, he has to leave WCW if he gets pinned). Well of course you can argue the referee should just have DQed Jarrett when he saw CC mess around with Hennig, but for what it was, I thought it was good. Match of the week : Jaime Howard vs Devon Storm (Saturday Night). These two work like it's 1996 and they want to get the cruiserweight division over. By that I mean, way too hard for this company and what it could offer them at this point. This is spotty but with lot of good action and impressive athletic stuff and counters. A proto X-division match of sorts, I guess. Awkward match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Madusa (Nitro). Looking that stuff *now* is pretty awkward for obvious reasons, although Benoit never really hits Madusa for most of the short match they have together, only one chop (hey, how much of a pussy does Sid look like now ?) which looked like the end of the match, and Benoit acted like he didn't want to hit her. Ends up with Jarrett interfering and making a reference to his WWF gimmick of women beater. DQ, Benoit wins. Well, this week was better, at least there was some pretty fun stuff, and some decent in-ring action (I mean for late 1999 WCW) with Kidman & Konnan vs Barbarian & Jerry Flynn and also Curt Hennig vs Dean Malenko on Thunder, Bret Hart (limping less) vs Perry Saturn on Nitro and the Kimberly & David Flair angle which saw the involment of Bam Bam, ending up with David beating up Bigelow with his crowbar and Kim running scared shitless through the crowd (then David destroying her car while she was inside). Of course there was also a lot of shit, like the Disco Inferno owning money to the mafia angle developping, the infamous Nitro Girl feud, the debut of a tall black woman helping Booker T (not yet with the stupid entrance), the fucking Misfits as the new Vampiro stable, Evan Karagias & Madusa, La Parka being given a fake English voice, Duggan as a janitor, Chavo Guerrero as an Amway seller and stuff like that. Oh, and an atrocious mixed tag match between the Animals (who are bayfaces after all, I guess, now that Ric Flair is no longer around) & the Revolution. Perry Saturn looks like he's going a bit loony, so we already have the seeds for partners not going along in the Revolution *again*. That being said, they need Shane Douglas as a color man yesterday. Each time he's on the mic announcing during his partners' matches he's so above everyone else on the announcing team it's ridiculous. One thing about the Filthy Animals : with her high heels, Torrie is basically taller than anyone in the stable, which kinda looks odd... Vince Russo Tally Title changes : 6 Swerves : 1 Special gimmick matches on free TV : 6 On-a-pole matches : 1 WWF references : 13 Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 11 Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 13

WEEK 44 (Novembre 1 to 6, 1999) Shooty-shooty & WWF wink-wink promo of the week : Kevin Nash impersonates Vince McMahon (Nitro). Yes, it's official, now they are promoting New York's product. It's not even slightly funny. Very smark references to "being the toughest SOB yet still working the main event against Jeff Jarrett" and other shit like that. I wonder how Russo wasn't just fired after putting that kind of shit on TV, he's not just godawful and counterproductive at this point, he's actively reminding that the hot product is on the other channel. Gimmick match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Dean Malenko in a cage (Nitro). This is a tournament match. WOrked like the ending stretch of a 15 minute match, complete with Benoit doing the head-drop from teh top of the cage. In a random 5 minutes TV match leading to a gigantic clusterfuck with the Revolution attacking Benoit then the Filthy Animals attacking the Revolution then David Flair attacking the Filthy Animals. On-the-pole match of the week : Eddie Guerrero vs Perry Saturn (Nitro). To get a key. To free Tori Wilson, who's in a cage at ringside. The match sucks. Eddie slips when he tries to climb up the pole while Torrie has to maintain Saturn strangled up against the cage for ages. Funny character of the week : Lex Luger comploting to eliminate his opponnents in the tournament (Nitro). Luger is actually pretty funny in that role, turning Meng against Jarrett then luring Meng with Liz who sprays some shit in his eyes. Asking Sting to challenge the Animals with him to get the tag belts, only to fake a knee injury and let Sting get beat up by the Animals (who act like heels or babyfaces depending on whom they are against). Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Luger is kinda amusing. Xenophobic promo of the week : La Parka with fake and ridiculous subtitles (Thunder). This is horrendous. Stuff about Skeletor. And then he jobs hard to Bagwell. Catfight of the week : AC Jazz hits Spike during a dance routine. (Nitro) Yeah, more women in skimpy outfits, because we need more T & A than we already have with Torrie Wilson, Kimberly, Asya dressed as a transvestite hooker, the Cat coming to the ring with hoes (I guess) and Madusa as a sexed-up MILF. Cool match of the week : Curt Hennig vs Disco Inferno, with Larry the Axe at ringside (Nitro). Larry gets a big chant, and pops Disco at one time. It could have developped into a good match, but of course after two minutes a scrawny looking italian guy shwos up and Disco leaves with him. You know where this is going... Match of the week : Villano IV & V vs Steven Regal & Dave Taylor (Saturday Night). Yep, having a 5 minutes halfway competitive match between JTTS is enough to get the match of the week stamp of approval at this point. This is how sad things have become. Sex spot of the week : Madusa vamps Evan Karagias around (Nitro). During their tournament match. Yeah. So she wins and fondles the young boys-band look-alike. You also get the debut of the Misfits as Vampiro's buddies, Norman Smiley turned into a complete comedy gimmick in hardcore matches, which I hate, the first Powers That Be vignette backstage with Duggan and Russo's awful delivery, tons of shitty 2 minutes matches and more WWF references. The most interesting stuff this week was actually a sit down interview with Scott Steiner who just had a back surgery. Out of character, serious, old-school style. Thunder has pretty much been forgotten at this point too. Oh, and Kimberly left the Nitro Girls, leading to their demise, and she ran over David Flair. The production work doing crash TV is pretty awful, with terrible editing cuts from one scene to another. The Revolution vs Filthy Animals feud is awful, Saturn & Eddie can't have a good match together to save their life it seems, time or no time, and the heel/face structuring is totally messed up with the Animals. I guess they are some sort of tweeners, which just doesn't work. Berlyn is still working pretty hard and gets good heat despite not going anywhere. Jeff Jarrett debuted in a 3 minutes match against Booker T and looked very smooth, but the stench of Russo is all over him, and he's already overexposed on the mic. Vince Russo Tally Title changes : 5 Swerves : 1 Special gimmick matches on free TV : 4 On-a-pole matches : 1 WWF references : 9 Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 9 Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 11

WEEK 43 (October 25 to 30, 1999) This is it. The first Nitro Russo & Ferrara wrote obviously wasn't them yet. They had to use the material they got from the former bookers one week before the PPV, so they couldn't really go full speed. This week's Nitro was the real true to the fact first Russo Nitro, and in the matter of three hours, he made the worst of Kevin Nash look like Bill Watts at his best. I forgot how *unwatchable* that shit was. Seriously, it's beyond human comprehension. Idiotic bracket of the week : WCW World Title tournament (Nitro). Yeah, because Goldie really didn't win the WCW title on PPV as it wasn't an official title match. But Sting still gets stripped of the title. So we get a giant tournament to crown a brand new champion. With brackets. Cool. And then we have on this first batch of first round matches : a match that could/should headline a major PPV (Bret Hart vs Goldberg), a partner vs partner (Konna vs Kidman), a hardcore match and a woman vs a mystery opponent (Madusa vs Meng). Okay. Shoot me. Angle of the week : DDP gets busted by David Flair with a crowbar (Nitro). DDP with Kim (who looks stunning) makes fun of Ric Flair who he sent to the hospital at the PPV. He's supposed to face David in a tournament match (yeah, David Flair is in the WCW title tournament match, then again so are Lash Leroux, Norman Smiley and a woman...). David shows up dressed in his Flair robe, but he's got a crowbar hidden in his back and he jumps DDP with it and beats him up. Kim jumps in front of DDP to protect him. David looks nuts. Decent stuff. Fun spot of the week : Lex Luger let Liz fall on her ass to win his match (Nitro). The way Luger acted was pretty funny. The circumstances don't matter, Liz fell on the floor while she was afraid of Jarrett who showed up 10 seconds into the match between Luger & Rick Steiner. Jarrett busted Steiner accidentally and while the referree was counting both of them out, Luger was helping Liz to get up when he just let her fall down to jump back into the ring. Luger was pretty goofy and funny doing it. Abuse of woman angle of the week : The Revolution abducts Torrie Wilson (Nitro). At one point Saturn says to the Animals "Don't do anything or you will never see Torrie again". Really ? Are we supposed they will kill Torrie Wilson ? Anyway, this is absolutely stupid and leads to nothing but more idiotic stuff. Also it should be noted that it's the comeback of Asya, who wasn't missed by any. And it's a feud no one knows who to cheer for since both these factions are essentially heels. Yes, Vince Russo actually turned Rey Mysterio into a heel from nowhere and for no reason. Awful debut of the week : The Harris Brothers (Nitro). Dressed in suits, representing the "writers in the back". Not yet named Patrick & Gerald, but shit, this is awful already. Titale change of the week : The Filthy Animals get the tag belts back from Harlem Heat (Nitro). Man, Harlem Heat is so damn tepid. Kill it already. Gimmick match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Dean Malenko (Nitro). Last Man Standing. Worked in jeans, because it's a brawl I guess. Nothing to write home about really. Benoit had a better match with Sid on Thunder. Random match of the week : Berlyn vs Jerry Flynn (Thunder). Berlyn speaks English. Because Russo doesn't want people to speak another language on TV. You're in 'merica, speak 'merican. Nice little match with some really good smooth stuff at the beginning. Flynn is sporting brand new flashy red pants. Random tag match of the week : Silver King & El Dandy vs Steve & Scott Armstrong. (Saturday Night). Probably the best wrestling action I've seen this week, mostly thanks to the luchadors, as in all honesty the Armstrongs aren't that good, but solid enough to work well with these two. Scott does the worst hot tag ever though. Embarrassing moment of the week : The Outsiders "wrestle" against strippers (Nitro). I have no words. I'm just not gonna go into all the details of this incredibly stupid and shitty product. There's no good wrestling on TV anymore. Everybody talks now, because that's the name of the game. Lots of tits & ass all over the place. Lots of WWF references thrown around. Curt Hennig must not have his shoulders pinned or he'll be forced into retirement. Buff Bagwell is deep into shooty-shooty stuff. Jarrett is saying this whole tournament is a big "work" and that he's the chosen one. You know, I really thought hard after this Nitro, it's so unbearable that I thought I would just quit doing this. Since there's way too much shit to talk about, and this would burn out my brain cells anyway, I have decided I would use the Vince Russo Tally. It's not gonna be very precise, but bear with me anyway, I'm still gonna use it to just prevent myself from having to talk about *every* retarded stuff this guy put on TV. So, I got back to his first official show and there it is thus far : The Vince Russo Tally : Title changes : 5 Swerves : 1 Special gimmick matches on free TV : 3 WWF references : 5 Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 7 Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 7

PPV 10 : Halloween Havoc 1999 Match of the night : DDP vs Ric Flair. This is a strap match, because Flair spanked Kimberly when he got her in the hotel room. Okay. The gimmick helps Ric quite a bit since the only thing he has to do is brawl, chop, take strap chops and deliver some, and bleed. So it's end up being the best Flair match in ages, well, probably since his last match against DDP, who's holding it together. They don't do the four corner touch gimmick though, it's just a brawl with a strap. Ends up witha pretty terrific Diamond Cutter, then DDP proceeds to beat the shit out of Flair. David shows up with a crowbar, gets suckered by Kim who knees him in the balls/gut, which is great, so that DDP can get the crowbar and bust Flair's nuts with it. Pretty brutal stuff, akin to the infamous Lawler cane shot to Dreamer in ECW. David gets Diamond Cut too, as was Charles Robinson. Great post match, DDP and Kim rules. Sadly it goes overkill as they do a stretcher job with Flair like he had also a neck injury, only to be attacked by the Filthy Animals (who were themselves attacked by Flair earlier on). They actually kidnap Flair in the ambulance. Most solid match of the night : Bret Hart vs Lex Luger. The story is that Bret has got his right ankle badly injured by Luger on Monday with a bat shot, so Bret sells it in a quite subtle way. He still beats the shit out of Luger for most of the match until Luger turns things around and makes Bret submit. Not the prettiest nor flashiest match, but all made sense and Bret's selling was excellent. Liz was sporting a ridiculously sexy dress. Bloodbath of the night : Sid Vicious vs Goldberg. Really, it's all about the blood and Sid hitting a 10 on the Muta scale gusher, because there's nothing else to it. It's quite a fun spectacle when Sid isn't on offense, and it works for what it is. As awful as the whole build had been for this, the match it much better than it had the right to, but it's not much really when you actually look at what they do or accomplish. Sid's post match stuff is total brave babyface routine. Bonus match of the night : Goldberg vs Sting. Sting challenged anyone earlier in the show after the HOgan debacle (more on that later), so Goldberg shows up. Short intense sprint that's way better than their bad PPV match earlier in the year. Goldie wins the WCW title back. Good for him, he should be on top, but this is hotshotting booking at its worst. Shooty-shooty angle of the night 1 : Sting vs Hulk Hogan. Hogan shows up in street clothes and lays down for Sting. Yawn. I have no idea what this was supposed to mean. Shooty-shooty angle of the night 2 : Buff Bagwell calls out Jeff Jarrett after referring to the "writers from New York coming down to save WCW". Luger also shows up to attack Jarrett (because of the guitar found next to Liz) but misses Jarrett and hits Bagwell with the guitar instead. Super yawn. Sexist & shooty-shooty promo of the night : Madusa in a hot bikini promoting WCW Cologne. She's not happy with doing sexist stuff so she pours the Cologne on Heenan. Ah ah ah. See, more comments bout "writers in the back" and meta-shoot promo about not bieng happy about doing what you're told. Stupid. Swerve of the night : Dean Malenko turning on Chris Benoit. God, that Benoit vs Rick Steiner match was awful. Steiner is worthless at this point. And we get a swerve at the end, which makes no sense whatsoever. Surprise finish of the night : Brad Armstrong gets the pin on Berlyn. Okay, kill Berlyn off already. Sure, it's a fluke pin of sorts, but still, Berlyn has looked like shit against Duggan at the last PPV and now loses against a perenial JTTS. He's dead. But it's a surprise finish, it'll make people intrigued. I guess. Disco Inferno vs Las Leroux was bad, Leroux is just an athetic guy whose spotty as hell and sloppy to boot. The 6 man tag team match between Harlem Heat, First Family and Filthy Animals (Kidman & Konnan, Rey being injured) ends with a confusing finish with the Heat getting the pin backstage before Kidman gets the pin in the ring. Useless. Eddie ve Saturn was not good at all and ended up with Flair simply walking into the ring to attack Eddie with a crowbar. The Animals are heels now. 3 shoot angle/promos, 1 swerve, 4 title changes, Flair molesting two women. Great job. The last half of the PPV saved it thanks to Bret, DDP, Flair and Goldie and a lot of blood basically.

Hey, congrats FLIK ! That Tanaka elbow was fun.

WEEK 42 (October 18 to 23, 1999) : The Russo / Ferrara era begins. WCW is officially dead. Match of the week : Juventud Guerrera & Silver King vs Kaz Hayashi & Blitzkrieg (Thunder). The show was obviously taped before teh two retards began to book. Nice little cruiser match with some time given so we get some actual face in peril work from Juvy. Always fun to see Silver King get some TV time in a match that actually isn't a squash. Honorable mention of the week : Jamie Howard vs Kid Romeo (Saturday Night). Yeah, that's Jamie Noble's first WCW TV match I believe, and he already shows quite a lot of potential, not only doing fine cruiser spots, but also playing heel and pacinh the match pretty well. I have no recollection about that Kid Romeo guy, but he seems on the right side of the indieriffic line of young talent coming up at this time. So, this was all about good little cruiserweight matches. Ok, who am I kidding. Explicite WWF references of the week : check. Russo & Ferrara actually namedropped as the former WWF creative team on the air. Later Jarrett talked about him being on a PPV the previous day (Nitro). Evening gown match of the week : check. Mona vs Madusa (Nitro). Since the story is that Madusa doesn't want to have this match, they actually work a good little match with some of the best work of the night (which says a lot). Madusa actually bashes Mona's back with a chair, but Mona still wins. 1 minute long title match of the week : check. Disco Inferno vs Vampiro (Nitro). In a cruiserweight title match of course. Because like Disco as a cruiserweight isn't pushing it far enough, we need to have Vamp competing for this belt. He does the clean job anyway. Poor guy. Throwaway title change of the week : check. Rey Mysterio Jr. & Konnan win the tag title belts (Nitro). Total afterthought of a match, we get Eddie, Kidman & Torrie distracting at the booth and at ringside. So now we can get a three-way match at the PPV, because 3-ways are always great, aren't they ? Speaking of which... 3-way match of the week : check. Eddie Guerrero vs Perry Saturn vs Chavo Guerrero Jr. (Nitro). Totally heatless stuff, and pretty damn bad to boot. Got no heat whatsoever and a weak ECW chant (you're in Philly) after the requisite dangerous spot in which Chavo nearly broke his neck. Shooty-shooty promo of the week : check. Buff Bagwell talking about having the stroke with the guys in the back and being the chosen one. Shooty-shooty angle of the week : check. Buff Bagwell inexplicably "doing the job" for La Parka, as a "shoot". Awful debut of the week : check. Jeff Jarrett crashing a guitar on Bagwell's head and talking about stroke and being someone's boy. And graping his crotch too. Later in the evening, we'd see Elizabeth (who's a heel) layed down on the floor backstage next to a broken guitar. There's also Kimberly Page hitting on David, only to end up with Ric in her hotel room. Meanwhile, the Filthy Animals (supposed to be faces) beat down David Flair leading to Ric challenging them and being beaten down too. And the first appearance of Stacy Keibler as a contestant for the Nitro Girls search. And Hall & Nash laughing at the face of Goldie at ringside. And Bret Hart losing a match to Sting because of Luger. Yeah. This is going to get really ugly really quick. I really thought hard about throwing the reminder of WCW TV in my trash can after watching that very first Nitro. It's gonna be hard people, there was zero good wrestling match on Nitro already. Sting vs Bret Hard was pretty bad and boring and that was the only one that got any time. Really, Mona vs Madusa was the most enjoyable work of the show. Gasp.

I would throw the names Misawa and Hokuto around, but Scorp is actually a pretty great answer too. Amazing offensive worker, and none of his big flying spots were awkward looking nor looked cool for the sake of it. It was all about impact indeed.

WEEK 41 (October 11 to 16, 1999) Heartbreaking moment of the week : Bobby Heenan saying goodbye to Gorilla Monsoon (Nitro). Moosoon had just passed away. This is really sad to watch, as the emotion is as genuine as ever here. Poor Bobby is paying hommage to his late friend and really does a great effort to not break down in tears afterward. You can see him twisting his pen with his fingers and looking down at his notes and finally taking a deep breath before taking his turn to talk about this edition of Nitro. One of the most emotional moment I've seen on a wrestling TV show. Feud of the week : Perry Saturn & Rey Mysterio Jr. (Nitro & Thunder). They had an explosive match on Nitro which ended with Douglas trying to interfere only to be stopped by Malenko. Later in the show we would get a tag match with Saturn & Dean Malenko, subbing for Douglas who's not cleared to work because of his elbow injury, against Kidman & Rey in a very good match that is the best of this week. At the end Douglas subbornly interferes again, throws his chain to Saturn who then proceed to bash Kidman with it. Watching what happened on the screen, Malenko throws away his Revolution T-shirt and spits at Douglas. Earlier in the show, Benoit had already left the group as he was confronted by Douglas about his loyalty (Benoit was scheduled to tag with Bret). On Thunder Saturn vs Rey once again in the lesser match of the three, but with some funny bits of announcing from Kevin Nash, who goes crazy with calling everything "Old Glory" (dating to a Jim Duggan match earlier in the show). The whole Revolution vs Animals feud as been pretty fun, and Douglas & Saturn clearly turning heel was the right way to go. Cryptic shooty-shooty comment of the week : Hogan saying he'll show to the "guys in the back" or something... (Nitro). I think the rumour had it that Russo wasn't gonna use Hogan on top anymore after Halloween Havoc, so Hogan just said this stuff at the end of his promo. It must have gone over everyone's head. Better then expected match of the night : Ric Flair vs Curt Hennig (Nitro). Hennig was hitting on Torrie Wilson backstage when David Flair showed up, very unhappy. Torrie basically brushes him off (despite being basically a babyface being hit on by a heel here) and Hennig beats him up. So we get yet another Flair vs Hennig match, but it's better than the one they had the previous year, entirely because Hennig is much better now. Hennig does a hilarious sell of a low-blow, basically doing a moonwalk spot. Priceless. The ending is kinda lame, Flair pinning Hennig with the help of the ropes despite being way too far off for the ropes to really matter and despite having Curly Bill just right there at ringside. Man, Vincent is worthless in any role he gets, the fact he got a check from WCW for so long is a damn hold-up. Random match of the week : Lex Luger & Rick Steiner vs Bugg Bagwell & La Parka (Thunder). Yep. Bagwell interrupted a Luger interview earlier and got beat up by the Package and Liz's huge boobs, wait, by Rick Steiner, when La Parka showed up to save him. Why La Parka ? No freaking idea. This is the most random run in ever. So we get this short brawling match. Steiner sells shit. The ending is even more bizarre. Bagwell gets Luger in position for his finisher when at the same time La Parka enters the ring with his chair, so Luger retreats and Bagwell looks like an idiot standing on the ropes. So since La Parka is basically right in front of him, he applies the Blockbuster on him and leaves the ring. WTF ? On Nitro, Goldie actually speared Sid. Best use of Sid since he showed up in WCW. The angle is that Goldie wasn't supposed to touch Sid before the PPV, so now there's a cliffhanger about will the match happen or not. Berlyn is packing wins but all the heat goes on the bodyguard since he's the one getting the wins by punching people around. I hate this. He should only do it in big matches, Berlyn looks like a jabronee when he can't beat a JTTS by himself. He was doomed. Yet another pedobear approved vignette starring Dustin as Uncle Fester (that's a spoiler for you). What were they thinking ? That they could create their version of the Undertaker ? Anyway, most of what happened thus far doesn't matter because starting next week : VINCE RUSSO & ED FERRERA are going to SAVE WCW ! Because they are responsible for the success of the WWF for the past two years. The pendulum of power will finally go back the other way and a new era of rating victories for WCW will happen, it will be as big as the nWo... Yep. I guess that's how they sold themselves or something. Seriously, I think the company was still salvageable at this point, with the right bookers and ideas. It certainly wasn't going into the right direction yet, but the post Nash era, especially after Bischoff was gone, saw an distinct effort to actually give the company some balance and some direction. Going back to nostalgia wasn't gonna cut it, but you also felt they were trying to rebuild Goldberg back up, giving him more quick wins, having him do his long intro from teh backstage area with the security guards. Benoit was paired up with Bret Hart, so who knows what they intended to do with them in the months to come. The product was cold, but it wasn't horrible like during most of the Nash days, which are the ones which made it cold in the first place. Yeah, WCW was salveagable. By keeping on digging its own niche and not trying to catch up with the red hot WWF. But of course, it's not what happened. Next week, the Russo era 1.0 begins. Russo had killed my love for the WWF product earlier in the year, and he would kill what was left of my interest for mainstream US wrestling in a matter of two months or so. I don't remember if I made it to Starrcade. I know that by 2000, I had thrown the towel. So, with that being said, I'm taking a break now, which is convenient since I'm also taking some vacations. In a few weeks I'll come back and dive deep into arguably the worst wrestling TV ever for a major company. Or I may take all those files, put them in the trash can and click "Empty the trash can". Who knows.

Ouch ! Well there was still ECW but... yeah. Wrong year. WEEK 40 (October 04 to 09, 1999) Infamous match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Bret Hart (Nitro). Harley Race does the introductions because we are in Kansas City. This is probably the most famous match of the year in WCW. And really, as much as I would love to say it's great, if only because they were honoring Owen's memory, my opinion of this match has drastically changed (and this has nothing to do with Benoit). It is fine. Parts of it are great. The execution is the crispest you can find anywhere. But this has both the feel of an exhibition and of a match that went nowhere, like they didn't know what story to tell under those circumstances. It's not a pure babyface technical match (which it probably should have been), as Bret uses some questionnable tactics like strangling his opponent and punching him in the corner. This is not a mentor vs student kind of match, although Bret dominates the game. And it's too long, way too long since they don't build to an ending very well. There is some strong wrestling in this match, but it never really clicks together. They had a match earlier in the year that was much much better, because they told a simple story, with Bret as the heel. Don't get me wrong, it is a good match if only for the quality of the wrestling, but a great match it isn't, not even close. Some nice touches like the announcers staying silent after the ending of the match, until the replays (although Heenan cracking unfunny tired jokes during the match really felt like questionnable taste to me). And of course watching Bret looking up and saluting toward the sky is still pretty moving to see. The whole sharing the emotion with Chris Benoit is very awkward to watch in retrospect, of course, although at this point there was most probably nothing wrong with the guy, but still. It's like the ending of WMXX, it's a moment that has been emptied from the empathy you would have at first. Tragic story over tragic story. Brawl of the week : Chris Benoit vs Brian Knobbs (Thunder). I'm not gonna lie, I enjoyed this better than the Bret match. Shows how versatile Benoit was too. I doubt there's a better Knobbs match out there. Pretty simple stuff, Benoit actually kicks Knobbs ass pretty good, as Knobbs isn't afraid to go head straight into the ringsteps or take ridiculous bumps running down the stairs in the crowd. Even Jimmy Hart bumps for Benoit, like he's back in Memphis. Swerve of the week : Perry Saturn prevents Shane Douglas from hitting Rey Jr. with a chain, only to do it himself (Nitro), at the end of a very good Malenko vs Rey match. Malenko sees what happens on the big screen and isn't happy with Douglas & Saturn. Hum... a swerve, uh. BTW the announcers mentionned that WCW has signed Vince Russo & Ed Ferrera. Obvioulsy although they aren't writing the shows yet, their influence is already showing. Early 90's dream match of the week : Sting & Lex Luger vs Hulk Hogan & Ric Flair (Nitro). Talk about a dream match in 1990 or so. Is it me or Hogan and Flair have essentially never tagged together ? Hulk has a huge brace around his left knee, either to sell the angle or because he was really in rough shape, I'm not sure. Sting & Flair work most of the match, and it's better than when Flair was heel a few months ago. Sting is a complete tweener, as a portion of the audience still wants to cheer for him. Luger isn't, despite the überMILF at ringside, he's a total heel. It's decent but it's also a blast from the past, really, only Sting looks relevant as a worker here. DDP shows up, there's a screw up and Luger racks him instead of Flair, and at the end Hogan pins Sting clean. Funniest match of the week : Norman Smiley vs The Cat (Saturday Night). As of itself it's already a fun match on paper. It gets better when the cat antagonizes a very agressive granny at ringside. She even shows a large cell phone (large even by 99 standarts) and says she'll call his mama !! Norman challenges Cat to a dance contest of sort, but The Cat blasts him. Wiggle, James Brown elbow drop, this is fun. Hotshot tite change of the week : Psychosis loses the cruiserweight title to Disco Inferno (Nitro). Yep, Psych apparently won the title on the week-end over Lenny, and he does the job to Disco (who looks way too big to be a cruiserweight, that even was the entire point of the angle last time he competed for the belt). Good thing the whole Lenny thing was dropped, it was eye gouging. Too bad for Psych, who gives away his mask only to have the chance to lose a title we haven't seen him win on TV. Stupid angle of the week : Goldberg reduces Sid's car to a little cube of twisted steel (Nitro) This is the kind of stuff I didn't care for in WWF when Austin was stuffing Vince's limo with concrete, don't expect me to care with Goldie and Sid. Plus it screams "we're imitating WWF" here, which isn't the right way to go. Sid screaming "Why me ?" was insanely ridiculous. Dropped gimmicks of the week : KISS Demon & Maestro are written off (Thunder). On the same show we see Brian Adams as himself (and his knew leaner, more muscular look), The Maestro with zero fanfare debuting and doing the job to Dale Torberg doing a VIP baseball like gimmick. With Bischoff out of the picture, you can see they were writing off his lastest ideas, although they would contractually be obligated to go with the KISS Demon at some point. MAestro looks like a decent little worker, and he's wearing Kuniaki Kobayashi pants, which wins points with me. Shoot line of the week : "Kevin is working a retirement angle !" Scott Hall on Nitro, as him and Nash showed up at ringside with two hot chicks to drink and watch the show. Hall also said it was boring and that they would come back when it would be fun again. Nash added that are putting the band back together. See where this is going ? Bump of the week : Kidman launched like a dart over the turnbuckle to the floor by Devon Storm (Saturday Night). One of the most brutal Kidman bump I've seen. And yeah, Devon Storm was back in WCW. He'll soon get his five minutes of fame. So, we learn that Russo & Ferrera have been signed (is it a first that creatives are actually referred on the air as as such ?), we have a swerve, we have a WWF-like backstage angle, we have a shooty-shooty promo, we have hotshot title changes... hum...