El-P

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...

Nova truly was an offensive wrestler. To watch that is.

Amazingly ignorant. Pass the bong.

Nah. Warrior, Johnny Ace. The guy I've never heard anything against was Bobby Eaton. Even Steamboat has a few guys who aren't big fans like Honky. But Eaton, I'm scratching my head and can't find one reference of a guy speaking badly about him.

WEEK 39 (September 27 to October 02, 1999) Match of the week : Kidman vs Psychosis (Nitro). Started up pretty cold but developped into a nice match with some effort to draw the crowd into some effective nearfalls, despite Psycho never having been pushed to the level of Kidman. This was hair vs mask, and they had an actual barber with a chair and hairclippers at the entrance set. Kidman is nothing much of a worker as far as having low-end offense or holds to kill time, but he's truly effective as a sympathetic babyface because he's a hard bumper and he's got a connection with the crowd. Psych is Pysch, with all the good (good heeling, good offense, some insane spots, impressive bumping) and bad (tendancy to be spotty, use of awkward set ups for some spots). The match gets hotter when Juvy and Chavo helps Psych behind the referee's back, leading to some good nearfalls, before the predictable finish occurs. Psych loses his match on a throwaway Nitro match instead of building it with a real feud for a PPV. They learned nothing. Grudge match of the week : Mona vs Brandi Alexander (Thunder) Mona gets interviewed by Gene O, when Brandi attacks her from behind and delivers quite the beating. The match takes place immediately and it's one of those good Mona matches. Alexander is a decent Sherri Martel 2.0 like worker, Mona bumps like hell. Solid stuff with the usual impressive Mona spots at the end, including a beautiful top rope frankensteiner. Vignette and "debut" of the week : Lex Luger's funeral and The Total Package debut. (Nitro) What a bizarre concept. This screams Kevin Sullivan. We get this horror-movie like scene of Luger's funeral, with a woman in a black veil, with Luger's voice explaining that Luger was basically gone. We see the "soul" of Luger getting out of the coffin and standing next to the woman at the funeral, with the coffin going into the ground at the cemetary. And then cutting back to Nitro, the woman unveils herself as Elisabeth. She was 39 and she was at her absolute peak of foxyness. Just überhot. And then with the ominous music and the whole light show, Luger does a posing show like it's the Narcissist era all over again. Which it basically was, only done better. Nice way to "refresh" Luger I thought. He would also wear those new tights and kneepads with Total Package colored logo on it. Lucha match of the week : Juventud Guerrera & Psychosis & La Parka vs Silver King & Villano IV & V (Thunder) This is the comeback match for Villano IV, or V, I'm not sure which, who was injured by Kanyon (and not Raven apparently since he's gone from the company) 11 months earlier. It's also the first unmasked match for Psychosis. They were a lot of these during Nitro's heyday, but these days it's a lot more rare, so it's nice to get a mexican spotfest with lots of dives and goofy comedy spots. It's the best use of these guys you can expect at this point, so I might as well enjoy it. Barry Darsow of the week : Barry Darsow thinks he's the Blacktop Bully (Saturday Night). Nothing more to say. Shitty vignette of the week : Tony hears a menacing voice calling him, then we see a window with some storm outside. (Nitro) WCW had signed Dustin Rhodes away from WWF (why did he leave anyway ? I don't remember the circumstances of him leaving, Goldust was still pretty over I think) and they had a terrible idea for him... Moving along toward Halloween Havoc. They are building Sting vs Hogan return match, Flair vs DDP and Hart vs Luger on top. In a bizarre twist of fate, Vampiro did a clean job to Buff Bagwell, which seems totally illogical to me. Berlyn is packing up wins building to Brad Amrstong, whom they are pushing in B and C shows somewhat. Fit Finlay made his comeback at ringside to support Regal & Taylor against the First Family. Goldie has got his old intro back, I mean complete with security guys and long walk backstage. Shane Dougas "apologized" to Saturn on Thunder, and it looks like his left elbow is badly injured *again*. That's sad, Douglas was making nice showing thus far in the ring, but he was pretty banged up from ECW. Also, Coach Buzz Stern made his debut on Thunder. This is Glacier doing a wrestling coach gimmick beating down his inept student. Right out of mid-90's goofyness. And last but not least, Torrie Wilson is siding with the Filthy Animals.

My impression is that guys who are loners, not big partyers (or even at all) and smarter than the average wrestling immature fuck-up and who take wrestling for what it is, a job, are not well liked in general. Pro-wrestling is a sleazy business and the "old-school" mentality of "paying your dues" and stuff is pretty much a bunch of shit. Goldberg who from all acount is a really smart and nice guy also got shit for not being a wrestling fan and treating wrestling as a job.

I have a feeling of dejà vu.

WEEK 38 (September 20 to September 25, 1999) Match of the week : Sting vs Chris Benoit (Nitro). This is interesting because it shows the WCW audience were ready to accept Benoit as a credible guy working with Sting in a WCW title match. Match is very good too, which doesn't hurt. Begins slowly, Sting works a more deliberate style which suits his heel personna, but sells and bumps well for Benoit's intense offensive moves, including his hard suplexes. No close call like in the DDP match, but you can feel Benoit could have been pushed to the main event without much backlash at this point, he could only get more over working big matches like this regularly. He didn't need the whole ill-fated Revolution angle. This turns into a schmozz with a ref bump, Luger hitting Benoit with a bat leading to a pinfall. Flair shows up, get beats up by DDP until Hogan runs in. You know what, I enjoyed this very much. Sadly Benoit would not stick in this main event status, which he clearly belong in. Brawl of the week : Ric Flair vs DDP (Nitro). Flair is back as a fiery babyface and he's programmed with DDP. This is good, as no one makes Flair look good better than DDP now, and this one exemplifies that fact again. They begin to brawl outside a-la WWF before going into the ring. Good short match which ends up with, guess what, a Luger baseball bat shot and a Flair beatdown. Hogan runs in again. Sting & Luger surely take out their frustration after three years of nWo crapping on them. Heel turn tease of the week : Shane Douglas hits Eddie Guerrero with a chain (Nitro). Good, he wasn't getting over as a babyface, he really needed to turn, and the whole Revolution angle was a dead as soon as it was born. The story is that Saturn doesn't agree with those tactics, which fit his character of being a very loyal guy (which has been demonstrated before in the Raven & Jericho feud). C-show match of the week : Norman Smiley vs Scotty Riggs (Saturday Night). Nothing special, but any Norman Smiley on my TV is good, and I enjoy Scotty Riggs too. Fun little match. Promo of the week : Scott Steiner (Nitro). Yeah, Big Poppa Pump is back, and he's not happy with Hogan having left the nWo to get cheers from the fan. it made him "puke yellow and red !". Ah ah ah ! Steiner challenging Hogan was the right idea. I don't think it actually led to anything, but Steiner was to be put in the main event picture. Again, Nitro was pretty decent this week. Sting & Luger as a heel duo helped by DDP is good thus far. Sid is still doing his amazingly annoying Millenium Man gimmick, but I pretty much now which match he'll interrupt so I can FF easily. Goldberg is given guys to squash quickly like it's 1998 again. In a very bizarre angle, the ICP have been attacked by a "fan" three times in a row now. I have no idea and I don't give a damn. Chavo Guerrero is apparently a heel and aligned himself with Juvy and Psychosis, and he managed to put together a Kidman vs Psych hair vs mask match for the following Nitro. Yeah, because they need to take off Psych mask for no good reason too. Damn, if you're doing the same shit Bischoff was doing, what is the point ? Mona is having fun little matches on Thunder & Saturday Night, while Madusa has been turned into a C-show interviewer, and not a very good one at that. Also, they are building Berlyn vs..... Brad Armstrong. Okay, I understand the point, they need Berlyn against a guy who can make him look good after the previous debacle, but Brad Armstrong, really ? Poor Wright, he was fucked since day one with this gimmick which had potential.

I'm enjoying whatever good and whatever so-bad-it's-good I get from this. I'm not enjoying watching the horrible shitty stuff. WEEK 37 (September 13 to 18, 1999) Match of the week : Eddie Guerrero vs Perry Saturn (Nitro). Nothing special but it's still the best I've seen from Saturn in single in a long while, maybe since the beginning of the year. It's also planting the seeds for the Filthy Animals vs Revolution feud which will developp under Russo. Yeah, the Revolution is doing lateral steps it's not even funny. The whole "let's put good workers together" feud in the undercard was a Sullivan trademark in Nitro's heyday, so they're getting back at it now. Korakuen Hall/ECW Arena match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Dean Malenko (Nitro). They were the last two in a Battle Royal last week, so now they fight to get a World title shot. Yeah, very believable to have Malenko put in that situation. Anyway, this is your classic Malenko style exhibition match, the same kind he was doing in ECW in 95 with Eddie. Very smooth, very technical, but it would get over much better in a japanese setting. They still get cheers and claps, but to me it's the kind of purely technical stuff I've grown tired of ten years ago. Angle/promo of the week : Sting & Luger fuck up Ric Flair (Nitro). Ric Flair is back and he's all happy and shit. Wonder why ? Basically, and without mentionning it by name, he's glad that Bischoff has been demoted, I mean as a shoot. He almost makes fun of his last six months bunch of nonsense angles like the heart attack and the crazy Ric stuff. Shooty-shooty isn't too far, but it's not bad. He's just good old Ric coming back. Where it gets good is when Sting & Lex Luger interrupt him and basically say that Flair never passed the torch to them ten years ago, so now they have taken the torch and Flair should just leave. They are actually quite good here, and Luger's attack on Flair from behind looks great and brutal. Since we're not building to the future anyway, having Sting & Lex reclaiming what they were "due" in the early 90's is a pretty nice touch. Hogan and his new pal Bret Hart run in to save Flair, as Hogan says he's got respect for him despite their past differences. Okay, this is as "fresh" as can be using those guys together, and I enjoy Sting as a heel, he's convincing on the mic thus far. On the other hand the announcers acting like Sting is an asshole when Hogan was the biggest douche ever for three years and Ric Flair has been a raving maniac for the last 6 months make no sense but whatever, I like this angle. Main event of the week : Hulk Hogan & Bret Hart vs Sting & Lex Luger. (Nitro) Decent match. Luger and Sting attack Hogan's previously injured knee, so we have a story here, and Hogan sells quite a bit this time around. Bret looks as crisp as ever despite the long layoff. At the end DDP shows up to help the heels, and while the referee's back is turned, Luger bashes Bret with a baseball bat right in the face, and it looks pretty awesome, with Bret great selling. Hey, this whole main event scene is actually interesting me again, against all odds ! Charity title switch of the week : Chris Benoit wins the TV title from Rick Steiner (Nitro). So, Benoit supposedly will challenge Sting next week for the WCW title because he beat Dean Malenko following a goofy gimmick battle royal. Meanwhile, he gets the TV title after a short and bad match with Steiner, with a lousy cradle pin (which Rick almost kick out of anyway). At least Rick isn't the champ anymore, but really, what was the point of giving Sid, who's feuding with Goldberg anyway, the US title ? Rebuilding match of the week : Berlyn vs Buff Bagwell (Nitro). Yeah, do the job, bitch. At least Bagwell worked pretty hard. It's sad they gave up on Wright, this character had potential at least on the upper mid-card, the audience hates his guts. Xenophobia always work it seems, and the arrogant interpretor was a nice touch (although she clearly wasn't ready for the role at this point). WTF C-show angle of the week : Barry Darsow thinks he's Krusher Krushev (Worlwide). Yeah, they showed this on Saturday Night. Apparently Darsow was hit by Harlem Heat's title belt too hard and now he's confused. This week he's back at being the golfer guy. I would care if they could bring back Repo-Man. Otherwise, I don't. Line of the week : "For the first time in five years, I have a real job ! I'm free ! Free ! Free! Free at last !" Ric Flair on Nitro, followed by "We can't go there !" from Gene Okerlund. Well, Nitro was much better than the previous weeks thanks to the Sting/Luger heel duo which works well thus far. I enjoyed their angle with Flair and their match with Hogan and Bret. Sid is still shitting all over the product, it is unbearable, this is a TV killer. Bischoff being gone, so are the New Limit Soldiers Swoll & 4x4, and the KISS Demon gimmick is doomed. This is clear now that they won't push the younger generation as Sting & Luger are actually talking up the role of the guys Flair should have passed the torch to 10 years before. Let's pretend Macho Man in Hulk's locker room two weeks ago was an hallucination.

Seriously ? Flair going to the tope rope only to get thrown out every damn time (as a heel at least), Flair choping no-selling Sting or Luger with him looking like a complete idiot and begging off like a clown, Flair bumping for the referee. Seriously ? Come on... ANd I don't even talk about the entire figure-four deal that John described in details earlier on. I never thought it made his opponent look technically sound to the point he could reverse the dreaded hold applied by the master, it only made Ric Flair look like a complete fool. In term of psychology, Flair's use of the figure four was not much different from "you can't powerbomb Kidman", really (which, surprisingly, hasn't annoyed me that much on rewatch). Flair was supposed to be the master, but anyone that was above JTTS level reversed it the exact same way to the exact same result. It didn't make the opponent look specifically good, it made for a fun spot that the crowd loved because Flair looked like a fool and he sold it like a bitch. Flair was the bitch of all bitches, and he was great at it.

I often found with the poor sound in many arenas, that Goldberg's Megadeth theme, if one wasn't paying a lot attention, sounded a lot like The Bodydonnas exercise theme and I used to often break out laughing as I'd heard the music and expected the Bodydonnas and only to see Goldberg come out looking ANGRY, it was great in an absurdist way. Ah ah ! It didn't occured to me, but now that you say it, I can totally see what you mean. Yeah, it was the same beat ! PPV 9 : Fall Brawl 1999 Match of the night : DDP vs Goldberg. Even in a company that is going down the drain, even now that is friend Eric Bischoff has been demoted, DDP refuses to comply and suck. He goes full fledge old-school cheating heel here, as the referee actually finds a chain when he checks him before the match. DDP would have yet another foreign object hidden in his trunks. So it's not an all action go-go-go match with cool counters and sequences like their 1998 match, it's DDP cheating his ass off to try to beat Goldie, who in the end will even take care of Kanyon and Bam Bam before getting the pin. Seriously, DDP is probably the VIP of the company, he's doing what's right, he's creative, he's working hard. Yes, he's doing lame "fat joke" before his matches as part of a heel routine that isn't the best, but I'll forgive him everything, he's been a trooper and kept himself fresh. Bad main event of the night, with swerve : Hulk Hogan vs Sting. Sloppy, poor execution from Hogan. Kinda half-brawling babyface match, that is totally dominated by an old guy who works like an old guy. It's your turn my turn, but it's more Hogan's turn really. Doesn't get much reaction either. The finish sees DDP Diamond Cutting Hogan, then Sid shows up, but Hogan still takes care of them. Then Luger shows up with a baseball bat, which ends up in the hands of Sting. And he uses it on Hogan !! Huge pop from this, which is the clear sign the WCW audience had it already with Hulkamania 3.0. Sting wins the belt for the 9th time (really ?) and he and Luger leave the ring together. The announcers seems outraged by what they saw. Nice, I guess they forgot about three years of nWo brutally beating WCW guys (including Luger) down. This isn't short memory, this is pure senility. Good but sad match of the night : Vampiro & ICP vs Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman. This was the opener, rightly so, as it was a rather quick moving and exciting match, although the ICP do work like indy self-taught workers, which they are. Violent J is pretty decent though. So, this is pretty good and Vampiro continues to make good figure. He's clearly a guy that they could push, he's got a distinct look and actually shows charisma. Works pretty hard too at this point. The sad part is Rey badly injures a knee, probably blowing it out. Once he gets injured, he can't even stand up, and stays the rest of the match outside. He'll have to be carried out by Eddie, Kidman and another guy after the match. Damn. Shitty title match of the night 1 : Rick Steiner vs Perry Saturn. Rick Steiner has all the tools to be a good heel, but he just doesn't put it together. He's working a plodding deliberate style with spots thrown around seemingly without much reasons. I didn't remember that Scott was out for so long in 1999, and I can't wait for him to come back, this Rick Steiner push has been mostly unbearable, he's having bad, boring and heatless matches with everyone. Saturn certainly isn't a guy that will get a good match out of Steiner, as he's another spot worker who looks better working in tags (or with Raven...). This is pretty bad and also ends up by Steiner pinning Saturn clean with yet another extremely awkwardly set up top rope bulldog, one of the worst finisher ever as it requires his opponent to stand up his back turned to Steiner in the right corner. Revolution 0-1. Shitty title match of the night 2 : Chris Benoit vs Sid Vicious. Sid is putrid. Comically bad. Benoit isn't allowed to throw any chops, which is frustrating because you're waiting for them like you would in a Ric Flair match. So he bumps around for Sid's godawful offense and works his legs too, which leads to hilariously shitty selling and bumping from Sid. Of course, Sid wins clean, getting the US title in the process. Revolution 0-2. Average tag title match of the night : Harlem Heat vs Barry & Kendall Windham. The Windham brothers could have excellent matches with the right opposition. This isn't the case with the Heat, yet another case of nostalgia booking. Booker T was making waves as a single worker (although I never cared for him), so this is a step back. Ray sucks, but he doesn't suck as much as Sid. Nothing much to say about this; it was fairly heated while most of the matches of the night were cold as hell, so at least that says something about the Heat. They get the belts back too, which was pretty much garanteed. I think the Windhams would leave the company before the end of the year and work the Real Tag League in AJ. Missed opportunity match of the night : Lenny vs Kaz Hayashi. Hayashi has done nothing in WCW since he debuted. He's one of the best worker in the company, could easily get over by his sheer work and charisma like Rey Jr. or Ultimo did, but they never saw fit to push him. He's having the best match possible with Lenny, who's the worst Adrian Street ever, and yet does not get the title. It's depressing. Honorable mention of the night : Shane Douglas & Dean Malenko vs Hugh Morrus & Brian Knobbs. No DQ match that is worked first as a brawl outside then a regular tag match. Pretty good considering who's involved. Douglas has to be given props for working as well as he was, sporting his old plain yellow trunks like it's 1993 again, as Malenko doesn't particulary shine with this kind of opposition. And it ends up with the First Family losing. Revolution 0-3. Nice, they killed the faction dead already. And you wonder why they all wanted to leave when Sullivan was brought back as a booker in 2000 ? "We're a bunch of unprofesionnal bitches" match of the night : Berlyn vs Hacksaw Duggan. Yeah, Bagwell actually refused to do the job so he "arrived late". Even in storyline, this reeked of "I'm a whiny bitch". This gets better, since Berlyn's debut has turned into a lame jingoist angle, who better than Hacksaw Duggan to do the job, right ? Wrong. This is seriously one of the most unprofessionnal outing I've ever seen. Amazing stuff. Duggan no-sells everything and at times simply doesn't cooperate with Wright, who's got a puzzled "What the fuck is this guy doing ?" look on his face. At one point it turns into a slight shoot with Wright trying to throw Duggan amateur style only to have Duggan refusing to bump and countering the throw with a facelock. Duggan went into business for himself and only did the job after a horrible looking neckbreaker that Wright had trouble applying. Nice job Duggan, you old sack of unprofessionnal shit, you jingoist cheap-heat whore, nice job. He should have been fired on the spot, like Kitao was by SMW after the Tenta debacle. After the match, who's coming down the right to "apologize" to Duggan but Buff Bagwell, probably wanting to get some sympathy heat ? Pathetic. Duggan pushed him back, legit pissed I guess. Two bitches and a new heel character dead in tracks. 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. Douglas did correct himself but still, pretty funny. The PPV, only post-Bischoff & pre-Russo, was a disaster. The Revolution faction, with all the supposed younger angry guys, has been killed off. Rey Mysterio, the best worker in the company, is badly injured. Berlyn, a new heel character, has been killed because a little bitch didn't want to do the job and an old bitch went into business for himself instead of doing the job he's being paid for. The Cruiserweight title is still on a homophobic unover character/mediocre worker. The TV title is still on an old, bad, boring and not over Rick Steiner. The US title is now on an old, godawful and not over Sid Vicious. The tag team title is on Harlem Heat, a team whose "peak" was in 1995/1996, and which includes Stevie Ray, one of the worst worker in the company. Babyface champ Hulk Hogan being bashed by a baseball bat by Sting got a huge pop. I'll use an expression I was using left and right about joshi puroresu back in the early 00's, WCW was now a zombi promotion, there's no two ways about it. I had underrated how much damage Nash had done to the company in the past, but going through it really makes the picture clear. I'm not sure it could have been saved. They had ONE star, not two, ONE : Goldberg, and he has been demeaned all year long since losing his title at Starrcade by being put in second rate feuds, far away from the title picture most of the time. The nail in the coffin was him aligning with Hogan and playing Randy Savage. Goldberg was a phenom in 1998, now he's just another guy. He's still the biggest star they have, but he's been damaged beyond repair to look like what he used to be again. Nash also killed the cruiserweight title, the TV title and the US title. When he stepped down from booking, you can see the commitee tried to salvage things up, but they did it all wrong by pushing Lenny, Steiner and having Sid pinning Chris Benoit clean. The main event scene is a bad parody of 1995, with the main guys being Hogan, Luger and Sting, with Goldie playing Savage. And Flair will come back. I seriously doubt that anyone could save this company at this point. Maybe with the right guys at the helm right when Nash was demoted. But Sullivan, Taylor & co did a pretty horrible job to begin with. In 6 weeks Russo would leave WWF and jump to WCW, seen as the savior of the company. In the end, he would just finish the job Nash began, kill WCW dead and rape its corpse several time around. This will be a bumpy ride...

Don't think I ignore that fact John, I'm trembling each time I check out the WCW booker calendar. WEEK 36 (September 6 to 11, 1999) Mark Curtis died on the day before Saturday Night. There was a mention at the beginning of the program. Match of the week : Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman vs Juventud Guerrera & Psychosis & Blitzkrieg (Nitro). Juvy is dressed exactly like Kidman, which makes Kidman quite angry. No idea if that will lead to something or if it's just Juvy booking his own shit. There's few and few substantial wrestling matches on TV at this point, lot of JTTS matches actually, so this is the best match of the week. About as good a short Nitro match these six could have. They tease an angle with Chavo, as he gets angry with Kidman at one point because of a minor fuck up. They do the same thing on Saturday Night, with Chavo getting frustrated with Rey not watching his back. Uncle Eddie sees that everyone gets along at the end. Random match of the week : Norman Smiley vs Disco Inferno (Saturday Night). Disco says that the Wiggle has been banned and that the ref should DQ Smiley if he tried it. Of course it's bullshit, but Disco still tries to prevent Smiley from doing the Wiggle during the match, which is pretty funny. The production crew makes the laziest effort ever to zoom in on Smiley's face when he actually does the Wiggle (they can't show it on TV). Nice little match. Disco overuses the counter to his finisher, but Steve Austin was doing the exact same thing at the time so it's no big deal. These two can be on my TV every week on every show against good opponents. Hilarious bad timing/production fuck up/stupid idea of the week : The Maestro (not named) plays the piano descending from the ceiling on a large an expensive set-up while Sid Vicious is killing guys in the ring (Nitro). Yeah, we've heard the piano the previous week on Nitro, without knowing what it was all about. I have no idea why they would do this stuff exactly when Sid is coming down the ring to crap on another match. It all looks like a completely absurd and fucked up mix of terrible stuff all at once. Honorable mention of the week : Steven Regal & Dave Taylor & Chris Adams vs Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn & Shane Douglas (Thunder). It's a shame that Finley's injury basically ended both his career in WCW and the semi-push for the UK faction. This is decent enough and at least we get some good action for a while. Shane Douglas is not catching up at all despite being really solid in the ring. You can see he's trying too hard to be a face cattering to the audience, and it's not what The Franchise character is all about. Miscasting. He needs to turn heel quick. The whole Revolution deal look more and more like the laziest way ever to try and build some "young" guys. And giving each of them the mic to cut promos is not a good ideas. Three of them are wooden and overly stern, and the fourth one is only really efficient as a heel on the mic. Stupid main event angle of the week : Who attacked Sting in the dark ? (Nitro) So, Sting wants to talk with Hogan. I forgot to tell that the previous week, in an amazingly idiotic cliffhanger, Sting tried to get into Hogan's locker room only to see Randy Savage & Gorgeous George there. So, there is a lot of MYSTERY and INTRIGUE. Anyway... Hogan was talking with Bret Hart (yeah, Bret came back and said he needed to have this big match with Hogan that he always dreamed of) when Sting stormed into the locker room with Luger and asked to talk with Hogan. Hogan agreed, then all became black, and we hear a comotion. When the light goes up again, Sting is down and Luger accuses Hogan of having attacked Sting. Oh, great... After the main event (a cage match with Hogan & Goldberg vs DDP, Sid & Steiner which saw Hogan do a clean pin on DDP after Sting came to the aid of the babyfaces), Luger and Sting argued until Luger finally hit Sting from behind. My head aches. We have moved into 1996 territory, Lex & Sting having issues. Nice. Can Liz come back already ? New West Texas Redneck of the week : Curly Bill aka Vincent (Nitro). Bobby Duncum is injured, so Vince propose himslelf because he's a redneck from the South. Okay... Maybe they have found a way to make me enjoy Virgil in WCW. Or not. Goldberg has his old music theme back. That's excellent, because the Megadeath theme didn't fit him at all. That's the only really positive thing I can think off. Fall Brawl looks bad and boring on paper. I can't stand Lenny & Lodi. Saturn vs Rick Steiner will probably be bad. Sid vs Benoit will be depressing for many reasons. Douglas & Malenko vs Morrus & Knobbs is a Thunder match main event at best. Berlyn vs Bagwell will probably be bad too. Harlem Heat vs The Windhams will be as good a Heat match can be in 99, which doesn't mean much. The only interesting match on paper (as far as work goes) is Goldberg vs DDP, and it's a rehash of a rehash at this point. Goldie should be the champ and be fed fresh and dangerous opponents. Hogan vs Sting has been built in the most ridiculous way imaginable. Hulkamania died in 1996, and it was great. Its comeback in 1999 was cute for a week. Then it got completely ridiculous.

It comes from the WCW thread. I talked about how Sid was a giant unprofessional pussy for refusing to take Benoit's chops while even guys like David Flair took them. Made Benoit look awkward not using one of his usual and primary moves too.

WEEK 35 (August 30 to September 4, 1999) Really stupid angle of the week : Was Hogan driving the hummer ? (Nitro). SO, Lex has the proof that Hogan is an hypocrite. Mean Gene acts all outraged, seemingly having forgotten three years of nWo. I hate Gene the Hulkamaniac. Anyway, later in the show, Luger shows a stupid photo of Hogan standing next to a Hummer (a white one to boot) like it was the proof that Hogan was the one who was driving the Hummer that crashed Kevin Nash. Of course this is Luger being an lousy manipulator, but this is still so stupid for so many reasons. The funniest part is Hogan taking the photo from Sting's hands and hiding it like it was some kind of proof, and instead of just rationalizing things, which would be easy, is acting all hyped up and defensive, asking Sting to look into his eyes and believe him. Hulk Hogan is still a terrible character, Sting is still a complete dumbass and Luger is the only legit fun part of the whole deal, being obviously portrayed as a heel stirring shit up in a very awkward way. But man, what a load of crap. Death of WCW match of the week : Hulk Hogan & Goldberg vs DDP & Bam Bam Bigelow & Kanyon (Nitro). Could be called "Death of Goldberg match of the week" also. Goldie being portrayed as Hogan's pal makes no sense whatsoever to begin with, has he forgotten the Starccade match and the Fingerpoke of Doom already ? But this isn't the worse part. In this match, Goldberg plays face in peril, selling for the Triad while Hogan is outside. Complete ass-backward psychology. At this point Goldie is nothing special anymore, he's just another guy who's playing along, and under, Hogan. This is brutal. Squash of the week : Goldberg vs The Cat (Thunder). THIS is how to maintain Goldie over. The Cat calls him out. Spear + jackhammer. Who's next ? Goldberg was their only hope, and Hogan made sure he would just not make it because the future of the company certainly was Hulkamania 1999. Depressing. Debut of the week : Berlyn (Nitro). I like the look, I like the Carl Orff's ripoff music, I like the idea of a blonde german woman being his interpretator. The issue is that Wright is not a very good promo, and it shows even when he speaks German (from the few things I can pick up). And the woman fucked up his catchphrase too. But at least there was some idea here for a fresh new heel. He calls out Buff Bagwell. Man, Bagwell's push surely dropped dead after the Piper program, now he's a bottom feeder to put over a newcomer. Can't say I disaprove. Match of the week by default : Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio Jr. vs La Parka & Bliztkrieg (Nitro). Short match, sadly, but really sweet for what it is. La Parka is a JTTS. Meanwhile Lenny Lane doing a truly offensive homophobic baiting gimmick is the cruiserweight champ. Stiffest match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Jerry Flynn (Nitro). Because stiffness is fun, especialy with two workers who are intense and know what they do. Bad promos of the week (every week) : Revolution (Nitro & Thunder). This doesn't work. The whole idea behind Douglas aligning himself with Malenko, Benoit & Saturn was to feud with Ric Flair, who lost power on the same show he debuted. Now they are feuding with the First Family. Okay, this is not entirely true, Benoit is calling out Sid (who himself is calling out Goldie, so it works like a charm to make Benoit look like an afterthough) and Perry Saturn is calling out Rick Steiner. But they really aren't very good promos, Benoit & Malenko especially are wooden. Douglas is trying too hard to sell his group as something special, but they have no big issue at hand so it just doesn't work, especially since Douglas just hasn't been established to the WCW audience. And he's a heel at heart. Sid is all over the TV, so is Hogan and he's as bad as he was in 1995. The Hulkamania comeback has overstayed its welcome after the second week. The Revolution crew doesn't catch up. Vampiro is working a bizarre angle where he interferes in JTTS matches then tells them that they owe him. And he gets challenged by the KISS Demon, which has been Brian Adams thus far actually. Don't ask me, I have no idea what the fuck this is about. So there it is, the whole "intrigue" on top is pretty awful. The undercard is not exactly exciting because the three single titles feuds involve Sid, Rick Steiner and Lenny "let's chant faggot at him" Lane. And the tag team situation still revolves around Harlem Heat getting a return match. So yeah. Not good.