El-P

The best part of this is Sullivan saying he had signed a three year contract 3 days before being removed from booking. Awesome carny move. Yeah, this was pretty fun to watch.

Listened to the Cornette interview. I fail to see how he sounds bitter and angry. He has his opinions about what pro-wrestling has become, which are both very understandable and actually quite on the spot for the most part, and he talked about it very rationaly and not in an angry way. When he wasn't asked about modern wrestling, he was happy to talk about wrestling history, Jacky Fargo, his next book about Memphis wrestling merchandising and how he is in the best shape of his life right now. Sounded like a pretty happy 50 years old guy to me.

And we're getting to *that* week. WEEK 69 (April 24 to 29, 2000) Death of WCW title change of the week : David Arquette wins the WCW World Title (Thunder). The title already had changed hands on Nitro when DDP won it back from Jarrett (after an epic one week reign) in a complete throwaway 6 minutes or so cage match, so it's not like the title was worth much anyway, but this is a joke. And it is good to remind everyone that he won the world title in a tag team match that featured him & then WCW champ DDP vs Jeff Jarrett & Eric Bischoff, with special heel referee Kimberly, by pinning Bischoff. So yeah, he won the single title from his *partner* in a tag match, by pinning another non-wrestler. I don't think you can make it much more retarded. Of course they sold it as some sort of hilarious gag, as showed by DDP's reaction, but it was still a complete slap in the face of the remaining pro-wrestling fans that still subjected themselves to that godawful product by sheer loyalty to a brand they had followed for years. I'll say one thing about Bischoff, at least he's a good heel who isn't afraid to show his ass, unlike his mentally challenged co-writer. Most idiotic spots of the week : David Arquette doing the WORM - tons of gluey red liquid falling from the ceiling onto Sting (Nitro). The first one is mind-blowing in its stupidity, with Arquette executing a trademark WWF spot, which the crowd ate BTW. Nice to see that the WWF was more over on WCW's TV than anything else. The second spot was, well, another WWF trademark of sort, since it's the whole "bloodbath" gimmick from the Brood, only done ten times more stupider. That Vampiro vs Sting feud is eye gouging. Catfights of the week : Tammy Fytch vs Paisley (Nitro - Thunder). Yep, Candido is paired with the Artist to defend the cruiserweight title. But it doesn't matter at all (plus note that the Artist was the cruiserweight champ before they made all the champs forfeit the belts, but he still ends up in a cruiserweight title feud anyway. Dumb fucks.). What matters is having Tammy and Paisley do awful catfights and "wrestling" in skimpy outfits. Tammy was the best manager in the country from 94 to 96, and now she's reduced to the role of a skanky stripper (and in a company where you have Liz, Torrie Wilson, Miss Hancock, Mona, Daffney, Paisley and the nWo girls, 2000 Tammy isn't exactly the hottest girl around anymore). Candido is reduced to selling for Paisley. Depressing. Spot of the week : Hulk Hogan powerbombed through a table by Mike Awesome (Nitro). Well, that was unexpected. Match was Awesome & Kidman vs Hogan, and it stank since Hogan is about 2-3 years removed from being able to have any entertainning matches, but I admit I didn't see that spot coming. Hogan bled and took the powerbomb through a table, before being put through another one by Kidman, jumping from the top rope. I wonder if the fact Awesome is somewhat related (by being Horace's cousin of sort I believe) helped. I still couldn't care less about this feud, but I'll give credit to Hogan there, and Kidman is slowly developping into a decent sneaky chickenshit bumping heel as showed by a nice little match with Horace on Thunder. Promo of the week : Ric Flair (Thunder). Good stuff, although done in hysterical old Flair style, talking about working hard for the wrestling business since 1985 along with Luger, talking about tradition and stuff, and calling Russo a mark. It was pretty intense, emotionnal and actually made me want to watch the program progress (I mean Flair vs Douglas). Of course Russo had to ruin it by saying "It's the time of the show I'm supposed to be a chickenshit heel." and other shooty nonsense and WWF references (dropping the Lex Express, please...). Russo is not only a very shitty performer, not understanding at all how a heel is supposed to act (he's not even backing down from freaking Kronik), but he really does come off like a smart mark jerkoff saying insider stuff at an indy show thinking he's getting himself over. It's really pathetic to watch, and the fact he barely gets any response just shows how unefficient he actually is on every level. That's the big difference with Bischoff, who does fall into trap of insider jokes and WWF references (although it didn't seemed that bad when he was trying everything to make Nitro a hot product at the beginning) but who knows how to work as a heel. Anyway, this ends up with Russo kidnapping Liz because he "owns her" (yeah, because Liz being under contract with WCW and not Luger makes Liz his property or something), because what would a wrestling show be without some woman abuse, right ? He's not even able to carry Liz in his arms, that giant doofus who wears short sleeves because he fancies himself as some sort of big guy I guess... So yeah, Flair promo was good, but Russo ruined it. Cameo of the week : Marc Mero having a fight with Tank Abbott (Thunder). Mero was at ringside, and jumped on Tank when he attacked some old boxing trainer. After the Sable cameo the previous year, now Mero shows up ? I guess it won't lead to anything either. The product is pretty torturous to watch. Zero good wrestling on the show, the only thing watchable has been Mike Awesome vs Booker T, with Awesome looking like he could be something if pushed right. Booker has been doing the same spots routine since early 1999, to say how much I think of him at this point. The Misfists in Action (not named yet) came to his aid after he was beaten up by Steiner during the post-match, so we'll get yet another stupid idea on our hands pretty soon. Kronik have an interesting look for a bunch of Road Warriors redux, although Adams kinda looks like a giant buffed up metrosexual clown. We got a Bret Hart sit down interview on Thudner explaining why he hit Hogan with the chair, talking about how Hogan always avoided him going back to the WWF days yaddi yaddi yadda. More WWF references and more useless TV time since Bret wasn't coming back anyway. The interview was good though, but should have happened like in late 97. Miss Hancock is randomely showing up taking notes during matches again. It's hilarious (or pathetic) that they have no idea what to do with her. Mind blowing. Of course she's not managing Los Fabulosos anymore, because God knows no one wants to see Mexican wrestlers on TV. I fail to see anything remotely decent or fun at this point. WCW never sunk that low. BTW, the Nitro following David Arquette winning the WCW title did a 2,5 rating, which is lower than most of Kevin Sullivan's booked Nitro in February and March. So yeah, that was all worth it.

Well, I did take a break. Sort of... WEEK 68 (April 17 to 22) Shoot line of the week : "J.R you can kiss my ass" Vince Russo & Jeff Jarrett (Nitro). Yep. They had a "New York" celebration in the ring with all the New Blood champions, and had Vince Russo & then Jeff Jarrett cut a promo including this brillant line. So that's what it is all about. Russo "proving JR wrong about Jeff Jarrett". Holy shit. The level of retardation of this man keeps on amazing me more and more. Not only do they continuously refer to the WWF, but they sure aren't in position to brag when JR and the WWF are printing money while they are booking a bleeding-to-death promotion into the ground, with pathetic ratings and PPV buyrates that have sunk lower than ECW's on one occasion. Just amazing stuff, demonstrating their absolute stupidity on every level. Horrible promo of the week : Vampiro (Nitro). This guy is a rather shitty worker, but he's a downright god awful promo. He was already terrible at doing 4th rate brooding Raven promos as a babyface, he's just pathetic trying to cut an evil, "dark" promo on Sting. Then Sting beats him up anyway. This guy had gotten over somewhat as a babyface thanks to his look and a few cool spots, but he's just dying here, he shouldn't say a word on the mic. Running gag of the week : Mike Awesome powerbombed through a table by Kevin Nash (Nitro). I swear this had to be a rib. In a matter of one week, Mike Awesome has been booked against guys bigger than him and now has already eaten his own gimmick spot, even before he could execute one of his own on anyone. Worst miscasting ever. To think it will only get worse for him makes me sad. No wonder he hated his WCW stint. Dissension spot of the week : Scott Steiner signs a match against Jeff Jarrett (Nitro). "Could we see the New Blood crumbling before our eyes ?", as said Madden who oversells everything to ridiculous and incredibly annoying degrees ? Seriously, after one week ? Holy shit, this second Russo run is already hilarious and makes his first one looks like Giant Baba booking AJ in 1993. The match itself is a nothing match, like every other match on the show. We also had the continuation of the awful Hogan vs Kidman feud, with more nonsense I just don't want to get into since I'm honestly fast forwarding through most of it (brawl in the parking, more Hummer, Hogan talking about Terry Bollea, because it's all a shoot this time you see), the in-ring debut of Kronik, who apparently are taking the Harris spots, Booker T having to get back into Eric Bischoff's graces (I have no idea why he's aligned with them anyway), Shawn Stasiak defeating Curt Hennig and a stellar cliffhanger in which Bret Hart shows up to hit someone with the chair, but we don't know if it's Bischoff or Hogan. Also, Kanyon is back along DDP, after slapping him around a few weeks before when he was Champaign Kanyon, but I guess this has been erased from memory, and they have to promote Ready to Rumble so everyone involved in this has to be a babyface.

From the top of my head... Tawada / Taue Midnight Express (any version) LCO Furnas & Kroffat Rockers

PPV 16 : Spring Stampede 2000 Well. 14 matches in a 2 hours and 40 minutes show. Do the maths. I have no intention of going into this one in details. The one thing I'll say, is that for a guy for think title aren't worth shit, Russo sure spends a whole lot of time doing tournaments and title matches all over his cards. The whole affair was mostly heatless, with Hogan getting the biggest reaction by far (how bad does that sound ?). The crowd was sometime confused, reluctantly cheering for former super heels Team Package, but most of the time didn't care at all, because all those matches involved heels vs heels or guys that are suppsoed to be babyfaces but really haven't done anything to turn. The only ones who got some reactions were the established babyfaces who had stayed babyfaces, like Sting and DDP, and established heels who had stayed heels like Scott Steiner (who now comes out to the old Steiner theme again, way to make him look like a lesser guy), and to a lesser degree Shane Douglas. Shocking, uh ? Comical booking miscast of the night : Mike Awesome. He was booked again Bam Bam Bigelow (well, actually the Cat, but he worked 90% of his match against Bam Bam) and Scott Steiner. Way to go guys. What's next ? Sid ? The Wall ? Awesome really doesn't look that big next to those guys. Wrestling being perception, the only thing that can get him over are his huge dives over the top ropes (since the Wall already burned out his gimmick of putting people through tables). Well done. Epic failure of the night : Sting covered in... nothing. At the end of his match with Steiner, Sting was dragged by Vampiro through the ring in a very transparent and lame reactment of a Taker angle several years back. When he emerged back, Madden acted shocked : "Sting is covered in...." Well, he was covered in nothing. Tony said "Sting is busted open !". Well, it didn't appear like he was bleeding at all. Oh, yeah, there was some lame red makeup spot near his mouth, but nothing spectacular at all. So Sting was "bleeding profusely from the mouth." Shit, that was priceless. I guess the idea was to do some kind of lame bloodbath gimmick a la Brood (a gimmick that was already stupid as all hell in the WWF) or something. Anyway, it was quite the epic fail. Also, Sting had beaten Vamp clean and decisively earlier on in the tournament, so I don't see why anyone would care, Vamp was a jabronie (and quite frankly, considering his in-ring work, didn't deserved much better). Clusterfuck of the night : Chris Candido vs Shannon Moore vs Juventud Guerrera vs Crowbar vs Artist vs Lash Leroux. Went about five minutes. As bad as it sounds. Because having Candido vs Juvy in a solid 12 minute matches doesn't cut it I guess. Notable because it's Tammy Fytch's debut, helping Candido to win. She was refered to as "Sunny in the WWF". Of course. "Debut I erased from my memory" of the night : Brian Adams & Brian Carke. Gawwwwwwwd. Then helped Shane Douglas & Buff Bagwell winning the tag titles over Flair & Luger. Russo was at ringside, and he's about as good a performer as he is a writer. Poor Shane, he just couldn't get his dream feud with Flair, Russo is clearly putting himself at the center of things here. Oh, I had forgotten about the damn Kronik. The nicest thing I can say about them is that they aren't the Harris boys. And that would be it. Ridiculous but funny match of the night : Terry Funk vs Norman Smiley. I really don't care for the screaming Norman character in garbage matches, but this one was funny because it was Terry Funk doing stupid shit and them going through a lot of stuff and tearing stuff up backstage before getting into the ring. Dustin Rhodes showed up at the end and attacked Terry Funk, to complete silence. Poor bastard. He went through divorce with his hot wife and now he's stuck in a pathetic company nobody watches and can't get over to save his life. It's unfair, Dustin deserved way better than this. Highlight of the match is Terry's little dance after he wins the match, it's priceless. Swerve of the night : Kimberly turns on DDP. Of course she does. And you can see it coming from miles away too. The match between DDP and Jarrett is decent, but DDP totally outworks Jarrett, whom I had overrated after his first few months in WCW. He's solid but really would be better off working a chickenshit Memphis style heel, the tough guy style doesn't fit him well, no matter how hard he tries to drop those Lawler punches at times. So Kim turns on DDP so she can be with Eric Bischoff. He already booked himself to be with Liz in 1998. Insecurity maybe. Well, at least Eric is a very good heel and should get some good heat from this. This PPV was seriously unwatchable for the most part. Seriously. Like a 160 minutes Russo-Nitro with no commercial. Just eye gouging in its stupidity, predictability (in being stupid and "swervy") and complete lack of decent wrestling. The only really fun match was Terry vs Norman, as the main event was totally flat underachiever stuff, as Jarrett just doesn't belong on that level, and shouldn't work main events until he gets his ass over at the very least, which probably would never have happened anyway. Of course, the only reason why he ever was put there is because of politics, which is extremely ironic when you think of it and why Benoit & co left the company in the first place. Jarrett indeed was the "chosen one" to be on top of a dead promotion.

So, UFC really *is* like pro-wrestling after all.

I'll beat on the corpse unmercyfully then... ECW Press here I come... (or something). WEEK 67 (April 10 to 15, 2000) Oh, man, where do I start... Death of WCW "big idea" of the week : Millionaire's Club vs New Blood (Nitro / Thunder). So there it, is the big idea. Probably one of the stupidest concept ever, one that shows the absolute non understanding of pro-wrestling most basic's inner workings. Strip all the titles like the champions are meaningless. Turn heel all the "young guys" and turn babyface all the older established stars, no matter how hard the former booking team tried to get some of them over in distinguished roles. Vamp was getting over with the crowd as a babyface, turn him heel on Sting. Team Package were the two strongest heels on the roster, Luger especially had established a new version of his heel character that worked very well. Doesn't matter, now they are both babyfaces. Sid Vicious just turned heel on Hogan big time and was building heat for a Goldberg comeback. Doesn't matter, let's turn him back babyface. What the crowd invested in the previous weeks doesn't matter, what matters is Bischoff and Russo believing their own hype and being delusionnal enough in thinking *they* were the stars and the draws. Worst all of, the idea that a stable of older established stars called the Millionaire Club are supposed to be the babyface against the younger, hungrier generation who ends up looking like a bunch of whiners and crybabies. Amazingly stupid idea. Retarded feud of the week : Hulk Hogan vs Kidman (Nitro). Kidman was a mediocre working cruiserweight who got over strong as an underdog babyface thanks to his huge bumps and the way he was working from underneath as a fighting babyface. So let's turn him heel on freaking Hulk Hogan. Brillant idea. I won't go into the details of stupid promos and angles involving Hummers crashing cars. The killer, what makes this whole deal even stupider than it is, is this : in a Rumble sort of match on Thunder, Scott Steiner pinned Kidman clean in like 2 minutes. Yep. Lamest debut of the week : Shawn Stasiak "the Perfect Event" (Nitro). Comes out to a Mr. Perfect ripoff music theme. Attacks Curt Hennig. Yeah. The annoucers say "He was Meat in the WWF". Whaou ! What a star ! And now he's ripping off Hennig's old WWF gimmick. Money feud. Miscast debut of the week : Mike Awesome beats up Kevin Nash (Nitro). The ECW champion shows up on Nitro to attack Kevin Nash, and cuts a bad promo. If anyone needed a manager to talk for him, that was Awesome. Also, Kevin Nash is about the worst feud imaginable for Awesome, who needs a small bumping face to work well against. The killer here is that Awesome would job to Tazz on an ECW house show to drop the ECW title, then Tazz would job on WWF TV to Triple H. In essence, Mike Awesome jobbed to a WWF mid-card guy just after he debuted. Logical angle of the week : Shane Douglas attacks Ric Flair (Nitro). As Scott Steiner is confronting Flair, Shane Douglas, who was off in XPW cutting promos on Kevin Sullivan in the meantime, jumps on Flair from behind and beats him up. This is exactly how they should have debuted Douglas in the first place. Of course they have to have a match right on the second hour of Nitro, in street clothes, because building interest doesn't mean shit. And Vince Russo himself has to walk his stupid carcass down the ring to beat Flair up with a baseball bat, stealing Luger's gimmick in the process. Because Russo is not only a great booker, he's also a guy people want to see on TV... So yeah, Flair vs Douglas makes sense, but Russo is clearly getting the focus on his stupid ass, including showing up disguised as Sting on Thunder. Epic fail of the week : "Do you want to get your scissors ?" Eric Biscoff to Sid. (Nitro). And since it gathered zero reaction from the crowd (although Madden, who's unbearable, sold it like Bischoff has said something amazing), Eric said it twice. To zero reaction. That was pretty sad. And funny. And yeah, lots of nonsensical turns, two swerves already (Bischoff and Russo teasing a confrontation then getting along, and Bischoff betraying Hogan), lots of WWF references (including Russo dropping the names of Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko and Saturn, nice to remind your audience where the cools guys are), Kimberly getting a guitar squashed on her head (yeah, because what a wrestling show would be without good old woman abuse ?) and no clean match. So yeah, the Russo/Bischoff era began, and it's already the stupidest booked wrestling product this side of WWF 1999. In one week, they have proceeded to make things even worst than it ever was during the entire Russo's first stint. Nice jobs guys. Can't wait for what is to follow.

WEEKS 65 & 66 (March 27 to April 5) Death of WCW "angle" of the week : Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo are back. (Nitro / Thunder / Saturday Night). This is it. It's useless to explain why this was the worst decision ever that could be made, but watching the entire TV shows being about these two was just nauseating. Not only did they bought their own hype, but they were in denial to the point they thought *they* were the draws and stars of the show. It's insane to se how much time was devoted to Bischoff & Russo, between the announcing repeating the same stuff ad nauseam and the countless vignettes of WCW workers, out of characters mind you, because it's a shoot, kissing their asses. The only two that didn't were Booker T and Ric Flair, who actually cut a funny short promo ending with "give me 10 minutes on Nitro and I'll tell you what I think of those two. Call my lawyer.". WCW is dead. Death of WCW evil promo of the week : Terry Bollea needs to reinvent the Hulk Hogan character. (Thunder, the following week). The first week of April was all recap shows from the history of Nitro & Thunder, plus there was that infamous Hogan interview, mixing shoot and kayfabe, in-character and out-of-character bullshit, but mostly meta-wrestling backstage insider shit. What comes off is : Hogan turned WCW from a southern based rasstlin' company in small arenas to superstardom and success; Hogan creating the Hollywood character was a stroke of genius; Billy Kidman wouldn't draw in a flee market; young and smaller guys needs to hit the gym more often and gain statures (= take steroids people if you want to get a push); Hogan vs Sid drew a lot on house shows because it's the classic bad guy turning on good guy storyline; Terry Bollea will reinvent the Hulk Hogan character. Holy shit. Debut of the week : Michael Modest (Nitro). The Artist wants to defend his title against some scrubs, so he picks this guy. Of course Candido and Chavo show up, screw things up for Artist, who gets pinned by this guy who looks like the older brother of Candido. They sure could have made a great Suicide Blondes team. I remember the hype about Michael Modest back in the days, he was talked about like he was some sort of über worker. He did look good. He never went anywhere I believe. Last random C-show match of the week : Jeremy Lopez & Tommy Rogers vs Los Fabulosos (Saturday Night). The show would become all recap, but we get Tommy Rogers one more time in 2000 against Silver King & Dandy, sans Miss Hancock since it's a C-show. Last random women match of the week : Mona vs Little Jeannie (Satudray Night). Yeah, as much as Stacy & Torrie look good (and I don't mention the three nWo strippers), they are still essentially useless at ringside (well, Stacy does dance). Meanwhile, Mona, who was young, attractive, a very good worker and who was getting over when she worked with Savage & Co, is doing meaningless women's matches on a C-show. This girl could have been something, but no, let's not have her do anything important nor get any TV time. Stupid, oh stupid WCW. Greatest match in the history of our sport : Ric Flair & Lex Luger vs Sting & Vampiro (Nitro) Texas Tornado match. So, Flair & Vamp have a boring, useless match in the ring. Meanwhile, Luger & Sting go all over the place. It's important to know that this was a Spring Break edition of Nitro, which I always loved, so we get near a pool so Luger can take the requisite back-bodydrop in the water. Ah, Luger. Wait, it's just the beginning, they are still fighting around the pool, and at some point Luger bumps (litteraly), into a waiter, so Luger throws him in the pool also. And they are going behind the kitchens or something, so that Sting can put Luger's face in a plate of sauce, guacamole and mustard or something. And then they go toward the beach. Liz, who's sporting a delicious miniskirt, follows them around, but she doesn't do much except hit Sting at one point, she was probably too busy having a good time. Wait, Sting puts a swimming ring aroung Luger's head. Now Luger uses a bunch of surfboards on Sting ! And they go toward the sea ! And yes, Luger takes another backdrop, this time in the sea ! And it gets even better, Sting does a freaking piledriver into the sea !!! And the referee is counting in the fucking water !!!!! This is seriously awesome. And Luger is not finished yet, he's feeding Sting *again* so he can take another bump into the water !!!! Okay. I just loved this. This is the apex of Luger's work of being a bumping goofball for the last few months. Okay. I guess I should just stop here, as I realize that there is still one year to go, including nearly eight months of a probably torturous Bischoff/Russo run which I've only glimpsed at through some out of context PPVs later in the decade.They haven't began their run and it's already infuriating the way they are putting themselves over and the way they are breaking the fourth wall. WCW was a zombi promotion anyway at this point, and Bischoff probably already had the idea of buying it for a few bucks at some point while Russo was running it deep into the cemetary ground. I'm taking a break. Will be back doing this after a while. Or not.

Yep. On the other hand, the new head writer who was in charge of the TV just quit WWE this week. To be honest I'm kinda baffled that Heyman is still considered some kind of genius booking in 2013, not to mention Dutch Mantell was booking that red hot TNA promotion a few years ago (granted, working with Russo).

WEEK 64 (March 20 to 24) 12 Months countdown to the Death of WCW match of the week : Ric Flair vs Sting (Nitro). Almost day for day, one year later, they would have that last WCW match ever on Nitro. The match itself is everything you can guess about Flair vs Sting. Wrestling audiences are like little children, they like to be told the same freaking story over and over again it seems, as it still works for this crowd depsite being the most tired and overdone match in the world at this point. They are raelly giving the rub to Vampiro in all those segemnts, which is good I guess. Whiner of the week : Hulk Hogan (Thunder). After the Sid turn (more later), Scott Steiner cutting a promo on Hogan and Dustin challenging him, Hulk basically complains to Jimmy Hart that everyone is after him. This comes off so whiny and lame. What a terrible babyface Hogan was. Turn of the week : Sid Vicious turning heel on Hogan (Nitro). Damn, and I didn't see it coming before the last moment. I though Sid acting like a puppy and a Hogan cheerleader was pretty pathetic, especially his promos with Jimmy Hart. In the end, I was fooled like a 10 year old mark when during the tag match against Jarrett & Steiner, Sid looked annoyed by the Hogan chants and turned on his partner with a chokeslam. Hey, Sid turning heel on Hogan when he has all the reasons to never gets old with me, it's like 1992 all over again, and I'm happy about it. That being said, I don't see how Sullivan could have kept the belt on Sid with this Hogan program looming in. The Sid turn was a necessity to bring Goldie back as a super face to dethrone the evil monster champ, but I doubt Hogan would have let it happened. New feud of the week : Jung Dragons vs 3-Count (Thunder). This is a short match, but it's already full of cool spots and dives that are already much better and fun than anything done by the overrated WWF crew of Hardies/E&C/Dudleys at the same time. This will carry me through those trying months to come hopefully. Debut of the week : Chris Candido (Nitro). Had a match with Lash Leroux, then another one with CHavo on Thunder, and he already looks like the best worker in the company, and cuts funny promos as usual. Candido remains one of my all-time favourite, and it's too bad his WCW stint was so short. He was a breath of fresh air in the undercard, and brought back some of what had been lost with Benoit & Eddie. Random match of the week : Jung Dragons vs PG-13 & Frog (Saturday Night). Jamie Dundee doing his goofy martial art against Jimmy Yang was the highlight of this fun little match. PG-13 were criminally underused. No idea who the hell The Frog was, he was a guy with green long hair. Repackaging of the week : Los Fabulosos with Miss Hancock (Thunder). Yeah ! Silver King & El Dandy wearing funky bodysuits, managed by Miss Hancock. This had so much potential of actually having tons of good matches and sex-appeal to boot, so it would have gotten over (although Miss Hancock would have drawn too much attention to her probably). The idea of Dandy & Silver King finally getting a serious push was too good to be true. This week's TV was much better than the previous ones, with some positive things like the comeback of Scott Steiner, the debut of Candido, Los Fabulosos, Luger having a decent match with Vampiro and keeping on being a trooper (his facials during the match were really funny), Chavo Guerrero getting back on TV. Sadly, it would be the last week before the apocalypse. On March 22, Kevin Sullivan was demoted as a head booker and the nightmarish team of Russo/Bischoff got Brad Siegel's endorsement. They already announced on Saturday Night that Bischoff was coming back, and they teased Russo coming back. When your big news on TV is talking about the freaking writer/booker, you know you're fucked. It's amazing to me that after his godawful and gigantic failure of a first run, Siegel gave a second chance to Russo at all. Just complete retardation. It would take two more weeks before the Russo/Bischoff era would really begin, as the next Nitro on Spring Break would be some sort of a transition.

Damn. You are a prick tease.

What happened? "Cornette has had a falling out with __________" is something you can pretty much set your watch to. Cornette hated the fact KC worked with Russo on two shoot interviews, the amazingly awful live youshoot with a bunch of Russo marks (yes, there is such a thing still) in the audience, and a Guest Booker (Rebuilding the Invasion, which shockingly has a better first basis than Cornette's, but ended up showing why Russo doesn't understand shit about wrestling). I think Corny had a really good relationship with KC and he take it bad that they would work with his nemesis and the guy that embodies everything that has destroyed the wrestling as he loved it. I can understand the feeling.

That's a way to put it. Another way to put it is "Flair screwed him around by losing his smile each time he was supposed to drop the belt to Luger."

PPV 15 : Uncensored 2000 Hulk Hogan fucks WCW's corpse in the ass match of the night : Jeff Jarrett vs Sid Vicious. This is watchable for a Sid match, although Jarrett really is using the same routine every damn match at this point. What's amazing with this is that Hogan found a way to interject himself in the match after Sid was KOed by a guitar, Hulks shows up, prevents the crooked referee from countinf Sid down, gets rid of both Harris boys, drops the leg on Jarrett and drags Sid's carcass over Jarrett's. What a piece of shit. I don't even know why Sullivan was even *trying* at this point. His whole plan was to build Sid as a super champ monster for Goldberg, and now he can't even beat Jeff Jarrett clean without having Hogan take all the credit. Sullivan had no chance whatsoever with Hogan and his creative control around. I don't give a shit match of the night : Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair. So Hogan gets a guitar shot from Steiner, who's back, and Flair directly attacks him. He beats up the KOed Hogan for about 30 seconds before Hogan takes control and beats the shit out of Flair for ever until Luger bashes him with a chair. At this point Flair takes over and I thought it could developp into a decent match. But, we have to get the requisite pinfall attempt in a strap match (and when Mark Madden is the voice of reason noticing it shouldn't happen, you know you're deep into it) so Hulk can do his shitty and tired hulk up routine that was annoying by 1985. Then we get Hulk taping three corners, then pinning Flair. Ok, fuck you. You know what, if I ever get to Bash at the Beach, I might actually enjoy Vince Russo's promo on this guys, he was as responsible as anyone, Nash & Russo included, for the death of WCW. Okay, why should I even talk about the rest... Retarded spot of the night : The Wall chokeslamming Crowbar from a scaffold through the stage. Yeah, this is 2000, we're still deeply into this kind of shit to get attention. Sadly, a dying ECW outdraw this PPV so Crowbar died for nothing, again. Amusing spot of the night : Lex Luger being scared of doing his posing routine with all the lumberjacks at ringside. That was pretty funny. Luger is still the best character on this show, and at least he seems to care. His match with Sting is nothing, STing obviously doesn't give a flying fuck anymore. It's all built so that Vampiro ends up the only lumberjack at ringside and helps Sting winning, ending up with the Brothers in Paint (what a fucking idiotic name, this is gonna drive me crazy) hugging. I understand the idea and it was actually a nice try to get Vamp over and give him the rub. Too abd Vamp kinda sucked, and was doing terrible 3rd rate Raven-like promos. Better than expected match of the night : Booker T & Kidman vs Harlem Heat . Yep, that was surprisingly watchable since Kidman bumps well for the two big goofs who can throw him around and look good, hum, watchable, in the process. Booker worked hard too, so in the end it was a lot better than it looked on paper. Heatless brawl of the night : Terry Funk vs Dustin Rhodes. Way too many brawls anyway on this card. This unsurprisingly doesn't get any reaction despite having probably the best execution of all matches that night (thanks to Dustin). It needed some blood too to get over. One problem is that Funk is acting like a heel a lot during those matches, including forcing an "I quit" match on the referee and beating him up. The ridiculous part involved a giant chicken, but the match itself was the most solid of the night. Garbage brawl of the night : Brian Knobbs vs 3-Count . Yes, way too much garbage and brawling spot all over this card. No sign of the Dog, only 3-Count and Brian Knobbs beating the hell out of each others with plunders and 3-Count doing really stupid dives. Knobbs beats the three guys and wins back his title. Take whatever fun you can I guess. Goofy match of the night : XS vs The Demon & Norman Smiley, dressed as another Demon. XS are Lane & Rave (no Idol anymore, no idea why they had to change his name). Not much happening, the highlight is Miss Hancok doing the Big Wiggle to Norman. The Harris Boys won the tag titles. Gawwwwwwwwwwwwd. Artist vs Psychosis was as bad as any other Artist match. Vampiro vs Finlay was decent enough for a third rate Benoit vs Sullivan Bash 96 reenactment, complete with them fighting all over backstage and in the bathrooms. But the PPV was no fun to watch, there was nothing I would call really *good*, and tons of stupid and plain bad stuff. Seriously, when a match involving Harlem Heat 2000 is called "surprisingly good", you know how low the standards have sunk. Mercy killing, now. Oh, almost forgot, Chris Candido showed up during the cruiserweight match, telling the announcers he was gonna be the next champion. It would have been awesome in 1996, when WCW was a hot pro-wrestling promotion.

You're all totally insane. WEEK 63 (March 13 to 18, 2000) Match of the week : Jeff Jarrett vs Booker T (Thunder). This is Booker's best match in eons. For some reason they really click from the get-go. Although I'm not a big fan of Jarrett's tough guy style (he was much better in 95-96 strutting around), he's still a very solid worker who can have really good stuff with a reasonnable quality opposition, and while Booker isn't exactly *good*, he's working hard to make up for it when paired with a good worker. Screwjob finish. Tag-team of the week : Los Fabulosos working against La Parka & Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Villano VI & V (Thunder & Saturday Night). So Silver King & El Dandy are getting a tag team name. Cool. Too bad it's way too late to matter. Plus they still do the job to Chavo on Thunder, but at least we get some really smooth all-action lucha style matches fro these guys. Miss Hancock apparently wants to manage them. That could have been cool if they had been seriously pushed. Last WCW match I've seen of the week : Hulk Hogan & Curt Hennig vs Lex Luger & Ric Flair (Nitro). Yes, this was the last WCW match I had seen back in the days, after a long layoff, I must have been channel surfing or something. I didn't get why Hennig was teaming with Hulk, nor why Flair & Luger were together. I still got this on tape somewhere. This is decent considering who's in the ring, Curt being way better than the other three. Luger bumps like a freak (well, for his age and in-ring talent that is) for everyone, and Liz sporting a great golden dress swings a mean bat to Hogan's leg. More beatdown. On Thunder Flair & Luger would injure Jimmy Hart again and strap his ass, so Hogan would take them on two on one. Hogan's ego was as bad as it ever was again. Just a few weeks after being injured, he doesn't have the cast anymore while everyone else in the company who was injured before him does. Comeback of the week : Hugh Morrus (Thunder). This man wants a push. He works against Vampiro and has a better match with him than anyone else had in the last few weeks. Vamp should only do brawls like this. Hugh does a Cactus Jack elbow to the floor and takes a nasty piggybackdrop through a table. Way too much tables being used these days, with The Wall breaking down table like he's Brian Lee in 96, but that spot was pretty spectacular. The build to the PPV really shifted from Sid & Jarrett toward Hulk & Flair. Creative control. The undercard is all gimmicked up since it's Uncensored. There's a lot of shit that looks bad on paper, like Mamalukes vs Harris Boys, Booker & Kidman vs Harlem Heat, Brian Knobbs vs 3-Count (it could be funny at best, but the Dog is making me fast forward all these segments), Artist vs Psychosis, The Wall vs Bam Bam (I guess). The triple main event of Hogan vs Flair in a strap match, Luger vs Sting in a cast lumberjack match and Sid vs Jeff Jarrett just don't look very good on paper. Maybe Terry Funk vs DUstin Rhodes will end up being the sleeper after all, despite a terrible build. Then again, it will probably be heatless too. This PPV will draw almost two times less that ECW's Living Dangerously that year. That's how dead WCW was.

Steamboat, for the great matches all over the years (characher wise, Steamboat sucked in 89), Luger (for the great matches and the characters), Savage (for the storylines, glamour and intensity). Sting is probably the worst long time Flair feud. Their match together in 1990 really did bring Flair down a few notch to me, with a shitload of annoying no-selling from Sting, and since this match was the routine match they would work over the years, Flair vs Sting was never very compelling to me and was the stereotype for lowest common denominator Flair match.

That's great. Holy shit. WEEK 62 (March 6 to 11, 2000) Promo of the week : Arn Anderson (Thunder). This was the only really good segment of the week. On Monday David was chokeslammed through two tables by the wall. Of course Ric didn't show up, but Arn and more surprisingly Hennig did (Hennig is feuding with Flair). Later on, during the Hennig vs Flair match, Arn runs in as Luger is breaking Hennig's wrist. Luger is ready to attack Arn from behind, but Flair signals him not to do it. Ok, so now Flair wants Arn to apologize to Luger because his intervention made him look bad, and wants Arn to join Team Package. Arn cuts a great serious promo, talking about their relationship over the years, what bad daddy and husbands they have been, but how Ric could take care of his 21 year old son now that he's on the road with him. Just great Arn stuff. Of course Ric is all hysterical and stuff, doesn't want to be a dad and wants to ride with Luger. Luger acts pretty laid-back and confident, saying either Ric gets with Arn or he stays with Team Package, giving him until Monday to make up his mind. Arn and Luger look good in their own way, while Ric looks like a hysterical bitch, which I guess is the point. Match of the week, I guess : Ric Flair vs Curt Hennig (Nitro). Better than the previous week because they gets more time. Hennig feeds and sell for Ric well, Ric does his usual routine old guy match, being much less intense than he was against Funk, but much better than he is when he works against a younger guy. It's old guy wrestling, it's a watered down version of what they were doing in 1997 which was a watered down version of 1993. Curt looks better than Flair here. Bad angle of the week : Dustin Rhodes brings out barb wire, Terry Funk brings out a chicken in diapers (Nitro). Oh god, this feud is going nowhere fast. No one cares, they cut bad promos and the chicken deal just gets into cheese territory which sucks for a supposedly blood feud. Beatdown of the week : The Wall beats up Bam Bam, David Flair & Crowbar again (Thunder) They sure build up this guy by having him chokeslam people through tables. Bam Bam apologizes to David & Crowbar for what the Wall had done to them, because he's the one who broke him into the business. The Wall shows up and destroys everyone. It's actually pretty well done. Too bad The Wall sucks as a worker, has a terrible look and no charisma. Sex symbol of the week : Miss Hancock (Thunder). Shows up during an Idol vs KISS Demon match. Lane wants to escort her backstage so she doesn't distract the match, but she ends up coming back and kisses Idol. They are building Lane & Idol vs Demon & Norman Smiley. The pervert part of me pictures Norman doing the Big Wiggle on Stacy, which won't happen I guess. Vampiro is having bad matches with Jarrett, so yeah, he isn't that watchable outside of a garbage match environment. He can't cut promos either. So yeah, Saturn was much better all around. The comical part is that they are trying to sell Vamp as a new Sting, comparing his bad 5 minutes match with Flair on Thunder with the 45 mn classic from Clash in 88. Hogan sends video package promos to hype up his match on most shows. Sting has limited dates so he doesn't show up often either. At least Ric Flair & Lex Luger show up. 3-Count had won the hardcore title from Knobbs the previous week, so now they are feuding with him and The Dog. Just awful stuff. Why is Al Green still employed ? Seriously ? They are building Tank Abbott vs Meng. Nothing much happens. This promotion needed a mercy killing at this point, which will soon happen.

Of course. That's the best thing WWE did with Rey, putting the freaking mask back on. WCW could and should have done it anyway. After the long layoff when he was injured, instead of coming back with stupid devil's horns on his head, they should just have Rey make a grand intro with the mask back on. It's not like anyone would have cared since he lost it in a throwaway tag match in early 1999. Rey Mysterio reborn with a super hero aura. WCW made the less out of the most amazing roster ever (although WWF made the less out of the biggest potential angle ever too).

In the "Death of WCW shoot interview", from KC, Sullivan explained that his plan was basically to slowly build Sid as a monster champ until the Summer, then he would get beat by a returning Goldberg. Then he would have run with Goldie for the longest time possible, get back to what had gotten him over (not talking, beat people, not lose). And in the meantime try to elevate the best guy on the undercard, and find a monster heel to finally beat Goldberg eventually down the stretch. The biggest loss were Jericho, Raven, Eddie & Benoit, who all had fresh main-event potential. Giant was already used up when he left after all the turns back & forth. Scott Steiner I agree should have been elevated, along with Rey Mysterio. Booker T quite frankly I don't see him as a main eventer (and his work certainly doesn't warrant it). Oh, and Jeff Jarrett should *not* have worked in the main event scene. Upper midcard along with Booker was the right place for them.

WEEK 61 (February 29 to March 04, 2000) Stupid promo of the week : Hulk Hogan and the yappapi indian strap match (Nitro). Hogan and his creative control leads to this. For all the good he contributed during the peak of the nWo, Hogan also did a lot to drag this company down the drain. Another Hogan vs Flair feud, but this time no one cares anymore. They are both done. Heatless angle of the week : Dustin Rhodes and Terry Funk beat each other up (Thunder). An abrasive promo by Dustin adressing the "smart marks" garnering mostly indifference, then a beatdown involving lots of stiff head shots on both parts. They want this to be a blood feud, but neither guy are really over, Dustin especially just doesn't connect at all on any level. His promo on Flair the other week was good, they should have gone this way. Or get back to Seven. It's sad, as I like both these guys a lot, but this doesn't work and they get barely anything out of really brutal stuff. Match and debut of the week : Jung Dragons vs Jeremy Lopez & Villano IV & V (Saturday Night). Yes, Jimmy Hart is unveiling the Jung Dragons, finally they are doing something with Kaz Hayashi. Lopez is some indy guy (like Shark Boy who worked Silver King on the same show and was actually put over). Watching the Villanos working with Kaz is a pleasure. Jamie San is right from the tradition of american masked wrestler portraying Japanese guys, like good old Kato. And Jimmy Yang looks like the perfect foil to 3-Count, which Hart knew since he made 3-Count show up at ringside depsite being involved with a totally different storyline on the main shows. Good stuff. Trooper of the week : Lex Luger (Nitro - Thunder). This guy was far removed from his working peak, but damn was he Sullivan's trooper at this point, delivering solid promos and bumping as all hell for everyone. This week he tried to have good matches with Buff Bawgell and Vampiro. What's interesting is that Flair had matches with them too in the same timeframe, and the Luger matches made more sense, hence were better in my book. And Liz is still swinging a mean bat. Funniest match of the week : Mamalukes vs Lane & Idol (Nitro). This is really nothing as far as a match, but its' all about Miss Hancock dancing on the table to distract the men. Total comedy when Johnny the Bull watches her with Lane & Idol at ringside, acting like college students in a strip club. Disco being totaly brushed off by the announcers was pretty funny too. Yeah, I know, this isn't good wrestling, but no one can deny them legs... Goofiest segment of the week : David Flair vs The Artist (Nitro). David Flair dances like a fool with the Nitro Girls - Daffney looks mean - David kisses her feet and makes up with her - Crowbar talks like Gordon Solie at the booth - catfight between Daffney & Paisley - Artist does his great finisher (the only good thing about his entire act and work). Okay. Maybe I spoke too soon about the comeback of cruiserweight wrestling a few weeks back. Almost compelling match of the week : Sid Vicious vs Tank Abbott (Nitro). Yeah, almost. Sid was selling the beating from the previous Thunder and a guitar shot from earlier, so Tank basically beat him up for a while, and that part was actually pretty decent. Then from nowhere Sid comes back and applies a sloppy looking crossface, to make Tank tap out. I get the idea, but Sid's comeback was so terrible and rushed, it really didn't do shit for me in the end, despite a good looking beatdown during the first few minutes. The Wall is chokeslamming people from the apron through tables, beginning with Crowbar on Thunder, doing a stretcher job. The Harris Brothers will challenge for the tag belts (yawwwwwwwwn). The Artist can't work a decent match to save his life. More boring stuff on top. They are putting Kidman & Booker in a babyface feud, in which they are teaming together but screwing up and blaming each other. The "hot" undercard angle seems to be Dustin vs Terry, but it isn't catching up at all. Nash & Hall are nowhere to be seen, so Jarrett acts like the commish again. Buff Bagwell is hitting on every woman around, but fails miserably. They also made Curt Hennig a babyface since they were in Minnesota, so he challenged Flair who was bashing the State, resulting in a rushed match ending with Flair getting the pin. Everything is very, very flat.

WEEK 60 (February 21 to 26, 2000) Match of the week by default : Mamalukes vs PG-13 (Saturday Night). It's both sad and ridiculous that a semi-competitive squash would be the best wrestling match this week on TV. And it's both sad and ridiculous that PG-13 would have been signed to do jobs on C-shows while a bunch of no-talent, uncharismatics stiffs like The Wall, The Artist and the Harris Boys would be all over the TV getting pushes up their asses. Turn of the week : Dustin Rhodes turning heel on Terry Funk (Nitro). Dustin was going nowhere as a babyface sadly, after a good enough promo facing Flair a few weeks before, so they turn him heel against a barely over Terry Funk. Won't do any wonders. Dustin's promo on Thunder was rambling and going nowhere, mixing "shooty" stuff like talking about his broken home (who in the audience catched that reference anyway ?) and a closet full of golden costumes. The reason why he turn on Funk weren't clear either. Dustin is acting all frustrated and agressive, but it seems like he's gonna have trouble getting over. Russo angles of the week : Madusa dressing up in La Parka's costume, Buff Bagwell hitting on Symphony & Daffney while being filmed by the Kidcam, Kevin Nash losing his mind and calling Ralphus on the phone. (Nitro -Thunder). And these are only a few of the bullshit that was straight out of Russo's alley. Did Ferrera book this entire week of TV or something ? Does Sullivan washes his hands of the undercard at this point ? A lot of matches were interrupted by run ins a few minutes in too, including really annoying assaults by the Harris boys on Kidman & Booker T, leading to a clean Harris win on Thunder on two of the most over babyfaces in the roster. Why the fuck are these guys getting TV time ? La Parka also got the voice over treatment on Thunder again. Really, this week is like Russo was back. TNA flash forward spot of the week : Nitro Girls dancing in cages (Nitro). I swear I thought this was an early TNA broadcast for a few seconds. Then I realized DJ Ran was all up in my area, and that the girls didn't look skanky. It's been an awful week, one of the worst I've seen, up there with Russo's run. No good wrestling at all, a bunch of horrible workers being pushed, Steven Regal doing his last job to Jim Duggan on Saturday Night (good job, they signed him back to be a jobber and now that he's back in shape he's gone), Berlyn reduced to a jobber while his no-talent bodyguard is getting a push, Jeff Jarrett doing the same shitty promo and guitar smashing stuff on every show. The big match of the week was Hogan vs Luger in a cage, which was basically the same match they had on PPV with a post-match beating by Flair & Luger. Not before Hogan gets a visual pin on Flair though. Creative control. They also beat down Sid on Thunder. Major yawnfest all week long. This was at this time that Terry Taylor resigned from the booking team, and that Sting wasn't happy with the direction of his character anymore and didn't want to work. Sullivan was so fucked and apparently he knew Brad Siegel wanted to get rid of him before long. He had asked for 7 months to build, but Siegel wanted immediate results and a "big idea". The big idea would be Russo & Bischoff in a few weeks.

Indeed. Only Woman on TV would have made it even more perfect. To me Booker really has done zilch workwise since the best of 7 series with Benoit. He's been worse than he was before when he came back from injury in 1999, and he hasn't stepped up his game one bit since then. Was he put in bad situations ? Sure. A whole lot of them since basically they put him back with his brother. But as a worker, I think less of Booker than I ever did before at this point. I'm a Sabu fan. Most of my favourite matches of his have been called that. Spot involving tying someone up with athletic tape never ever look good. That's the only thing that bothered me in the match.

PPV 14 : Superbrawl 2000 Car crash match of the night : Tank Abbott vs Big Al. Yeah, Tank Abbott vs his former bodyguard, in a match no one gives a fuck about. They sure beat the shit out of each other, it's ugly, it looks stupid, no one cares. Oh, the best part is that's it's a "skin on a pole match". Russo is back already ? Abbott's leather jacket is hanging off a pole. Anyway, the best finisher is Abbott KOing Al, then putting him on his shoulder, climbing the ropes, losing his equilibrium and dropping the poor guy to the floor ! That was awkward and really looked like Al could have killed himself. But it's not the best part yet. Tank gets a fucking knife and applies it to Al's throat !! The camera cuts off to a crowd shots. Madden "Does he have a knife to his throat ?!!". Schiavone "I think it was a pair of scissors, he was gonna cut off his beard or something." Glorious ! Nothing match of the night : Hulk Hogan vs Lex Luger. As much as I enjoy Luger's character, he just doesn't have good matches anymore. Hogan is not especially vicious though he promised in the pre-match promo he was gonna destroy Luger and turn into Hollywood. He also said he was gonna break Liz's body if she came too close. What a babyface... This is standart Hogan stuff, Lex bumps for him a whole lot. Post match, Flair runs-in and jumps on Hogan, then Sting runs-in to save Hogan. Okay, so we're somewhat back in August 99 before Sting's heel turn. Brawl of the night : Terry Funk vs Ric Flair. Better than it looks on paper. Ric was fired up here working against Funk, and it's his best match on a long time. Old guys beating the hell out of each others, Flair's chops are vicious like it's 1989 again. Okay, it's not exactly 1989, but Terry does piledrive him through a table again, and doens't break his neck this time around. Those tables back in the days were much stronger. It's a deathmtach so we get pinfalls and ten counts afterward, which isn't a gimmick I enjoy much, but they work it decently, except at the end where Flair pins Terry but the referee does a double count for whatever reason. The key to this match working is that they were intense and they sold the beating well. Surprisingly good. Dog & Pony show match of the night : Jeff Jarrett vs Scott Hall vs Sid Vicious. Enjoyed this much more than I should have probably. They work a short, all action match full of nonsense like Jarrett going thorugh every referee until the crooked one would show up. Since Hall & Jarrett kept it moving it had a nice flow to it, and they made Sid look like a monster, which was the idea. It was too short to eventually suck with Sid around, but long enough it didn't feel like a total throwaway match. At the end Hall gets screwed by the crooked referee, then Roddy Piper shows up (made a referee by the Powers That Be, continuity folks) and prevent Jarrett from winning. Hall does the job. Really, that was an enjoyable match after such a boring build. Comedy match of the night : Norman Smiley vs 3-Count. And this is actually funny thanks to 3-Count launching themselves like darts and Norman goofying around. Still, in the end 3-Count win by taking advantage of Norman's injured ribs. So we get some good comedy spots and a logical finish. Won't complain about any of this. Failed "workrate" match of the night : Vampiro vs Kidman. So, this was supposed to be the hot match of the night work wise, but Kidman and Vampiro aren't able to build a match by themselves, so it's a spotfest without much storytelling, and the execution isn't stellar either, especially from Kidman. I'm not sure Vampiro was better or worse than Saturn but he had nice power spots like the double powerbomb he actually applied to Kimdan, in the highlight spot of the match. Watchable, with some hot moves at the end, but a Benoit or Eddie match (or even a Malenko match) it isn't. True highlight was Torrie's outfit. She got involved at some point but her timing before she took a bump was all screwed-up. Not that she was to blame, these weren't ring generals in there to help her around. Match of the night : Mamalukes vs David Flair & Crowbar. This is a stretcher match so we get a awkward finish involving athletic tape, which never ever looks any good. Apart that fact, this was a very fun garbage brawl in which Devon Storm totally sabued the ring (which is a compliment coming from me, BTW Sabu was supposed to get signed by WCW at this time too, which would have been pretty great for me). Daphney does a surprise hurricanrana on Johnny, losing her electric blue wig in the process, which makes for a cool visual. This is the best ECW match I've seen in a long time. Plus add Disco Inferno who was quite funny at the both, and the result is the highlight of this PPV, involving young and fresh workers, some brutality, some fun stuff, a hot girl who could work and who had a singular look and personnality. Yep, I liked that one very much. Living legend of the night : James Brown. First The Cat brings out a very fake J.B., to the outrage of the Maestro. Then James Brown comes to the ring witha whole deleguation, and he has a dance contest with The Cat, which is actually really cool to see. The Cat could have been a major player with the right push, he had ridiculous charisma. This didn't accomplish anything since it wasn't anounced beforehand (Sullivan pretends J.B. no showed them a few times before that date which is why they couldn't take the risk, I have a hard time believing this one...), but it was still a cool moment. J.B. got the biggest pop of the night, as he should. The PPV was hit and miss, with a lot of crap in the first half. The cruiserweight match was bad, The Artist gets the belt. Yawn. They are still pushing The Wall, I guess to feed him to Goldie eventually. This time around the KISS Demon was his victim. Crap match. Then you got the awful Booker vs Harlem Heat feud. Man, Ahmed Johnson looked like the next big thing back in 1996, and he just became fat. He looks like a whale when he's on the floor. A big fat whale. He's still better than Stevie Ray, which is scary. I was thinking, why didn't they just bring back 4X4 if they wanted a fat fuck with freaky looking arms ? Well, who shows up at the end (with the Midnight gimmick that makes no fucking sense !) ? A fat fuck who looks exactly like 4X4. And he's the next member of Harlem Heat Inc. This feud is wretched. Poor garbage match between Knobbs and Bam Bam. This stuff had so overstayed its welcome. Anyway, the last half of the PPV wasn't that bad, with the tag team match, Flair vs Funk and the surprisingly fun main event saving the day. PPV 14 ? Hey, I've turned the corner ! I've done more than half of it ! If only the Russo/Bischoff era wasn't in front of me...

That's probably how they felt although really Eddie was the only one who could have been pushed to that level. I have to disagree with that. Yeah, they got more *promo time* an angles, but these were terrible angles. In term of placement on the card, they weren't higher than they were before, and they were put in a dogshit feud with dogshit intergender and gimmick matches every week. In 96 and 97, Dean Malenko had been an anchor to the then very hot cruiserweight division. In 98 he had the Jericho feud. In 1999 he was anchoring the hot (in term of crowd reactions) tag team division until Nash took it down with the return of Harlem Heat. Same thing for Saturn, whose highest point in WCW was the feud with Raven in 1998 then his time in the tag-team division in 99 along Benoit & Raven. All of this was better than this awful Revolution angle. They were under the impression they were getting more respect because of angle and promo time, but really, they didn't get over better than before, in a sense it hurt them because the matches nor the angles really didn't get over. And when you think about it, what did they do of note in WWF that was better than their highlights in WCW, really ? Nothing. Dean couldn't work with great cruiserweights, he had a good match with Scotty 2 Hotty which got overrated like hell because of a hot finishing move and that's it. Saturn's most famous angle from this time is the Moppy angle which was a rehash of Chavo's Peppe angle in WCW. Eddie Guerrero is probably the one who benefitted the least from Russo, having some of his worst matches ever during that period, despite being the one who had the most upward potential. Meanwhile, Jeff Jarrett who was coming right from WWF, where he never got over until he had Debra showing her boobs and then when he abused women, was skyrocketted right at the top of the undercard near the main-event scene despite not getting over either, simply because he was the buddy of Russo. Not so sure about that. His main idea was to go back to Goldberg, which was the only sane thing to do anyway. His plan was Benoit > Nash > Goldie. But anyway, after they left, Sullivan really had nothing left to work with on top nor in the undercard. Bret was gone, Goldie was injured, Rey was injured. He wanted to build a monster champion for Goldie to defeat when he would come back and choose Sid, as he was still fairly "new" to the company at this point (instead of going for Nash, which would have been much better still though). Right, and it's something that seems to be overlook. Sullivan made what Benoit was in WCW. And really, When the Radilcals showed up on a red hot RAW product, they were already over because they had been featured on a red hot Nitro product the previous years. If they had been jabronies for all this time in WCW, they would never have got the treatment they got when they first showed up. Damn, if I need to get through something eventually, it's those good WWF years I missed because of Russo making me give up on the company in 99.