WCW's Highway to Hell

[Death From Above]

I remember how forced Jarrett's push felt for a long time. I mean, it's not like he was a guy fans were crying out to be pushed then suddenly Russo comes in and he was suddenly everywhere. I don't dislike the guy, he's had his moments, but it felt really weird and artificial.

[flyonthewall2983]

The woman-beater part of his gimmick turned me off completely to him. My less-than-restrained feelings on the subject aside, it's just cheap as shit heat.

[Ditch]

I remember how forced Jarrett's push felt for a long time. I mean, it's not like he was a guy fans were crying out to be pushed then suddenly Russo comes in and he was suddenly everywhere. I don't dislike the guy, he's had his moments, but it felt really weird and artificial.

A million times this. He was a floundering midcarder in both companies, was never over, and then from late '99 on he's shoved down our throats. Ditto in TNA.

[El-P]

PPV 11 : Mayhem 1999

 

Match of the night : Bret Hart vs Chris Benoit. If there's one thing positive to say about Russo, and believe me, it's a hard task, is that by putting these two at the top of a PPV, he indeed marked a difference with pretty much all WCW PPV since, well, since Hogan came in. This was extremely refreshing and was made to look like a big deal, with the long backstage walks (a la WWF), the screwjob frights essentially playing no role in the final decision (first Malenko ridiculously dressed like a Canadian clown or something, then the Outsiders, chased away by Goldberg), and the post-match celebration with Bret's family joigning him in the ring. It's also the best WCW main event PPV match since probably DDP vs Golderg in 98, ot even DDP vs Savage in 97. Too much back and forth to really be that great of a match, lackinga strong dynamic or storytelling to favour pure mechanic work, but in that respect it was head and shoulders abover everthing else in the company. My main issue is that there was no real great near falls, and Benoit never looked really close to win the title (maybe once after the flying headdrop). Anyway, this is very good, and Bret sold winning the WCW title as something really important, so it looked like it was.

 

Honorable mention of the night : Jeff Jarrett vs Chris Benoit. Say what you will about Jarrett, but he's clearly one of the most solid worker in the company already, it's very obvious here. Doesn't get too much time, but it's really good for what it is.

 

Decent match of the night : Curt Hennig vs Buff Bagwell. Not as good as the Benoit match on Thunder, but Hennig does a good job with Bagwell too. For a match that's supposed to be the last for one of these two, it totally lacks drama, showing the stip holds no water at all. Bagwell in particular shows no sign of concern whatsoever. Hennig brings some urgency to it though. He also does a decent job in the post-match looking like it's his last dance. Of course he would be back in the ring as soon as the next day.

 

Bizarro match of the night : Goldberg vs Sid Vicious. Canada truly was bizarro world. Huge "Sid" chants. Huge "Goldberg sucks !" chants. Match is a complete throwaway. Sid is "better" as a babyface, but the match without any blood to make up for the lack of good work is nothing.

 

Nitro segment match of the night : David Flair vs Kimberly. Why is this on PPV? Not much happens. Kim manipulates David a bit and takes away his protective cup. Kanyon jumps in, then DDP shows up. Okay. David Flair is a terrible performer. Arn Anderson jumps in the ring to protect him, then David Flair hits him in the back with his crowbar, because he's insane you know. Another long stretcher job. I swear there's a stretcher job every damn week.

 

Disapointing match of the night : Lex Luger vs Meng. Yeah, disapointing because Luger has been really fun on TV. Meng no sell way too much for this to be anything more than a goofy match, with Luger wearing a neckbrace (again because of a fake injury). Bad timing at the end when Liz sprays Luger instead of Meng. It was kinda fun at times, but not as much as I thought it would. I blame Meng.

 

Sting vs Bret was a watchable Nitro match, but the rest of the card was trash. The mixed tag elimination match was terrible, neither Torrie nor Asya belong in the ring. Berlyn vs Vampiro was awful and typical Russo overkill booking, with the Wall spliting from Berlyn and Oklahoma & Dr. Death at ringside taking all the attention. That joke wasn't that funny the first time around, it already overstayed its welcome. Doc attacks Vamp after the match. Disco vs Evan Karagias was bad. Karagias sucks. Brian Knobbs vs Norman Smiley was ridiculous, and I really don't like the whole Screaming Norman deal, so not for me. There was a double title match with Scott Hall defending the US & TV belts (yeah, he got the TV belt for whatever reason after Rick Steiner was injured by Sid...) against Booker T. Booker doesn't do shit for me at this point, and this was a Nitro match with Jarrett & CC running in, then Midnight making her grand and idiotic entrance with the lights going down and the gong. The main event and the few regular good little matches in the undercard saved it, but the more Russoiffic parts of the PPV were nothing more than glorified Nitro segments.

[artDDP]

Can someone explain why it took WCW until 1999 to finally do a show in Canada? Why did they only hold two televised cards there when it seemed like a place they could actually make some money?

[Johnny Guitar]

Can someone explain why it took WCW until 1999 to finally do a show in Canada? Why did they only hold two televised cards there when it seemed like a place they could actually make some money?

They ran actually ran some houses shows in Ontario back in 1990. They held a card at the Skydome in 1993 and drew decent crowd in 1997 in Montreal for Hogan vs Jacques Rougeau.

 

WCW was all over the place with where they were and weren't running and where they did TV and PPV.

 

LA was one of their hottest markets during the boom period and it didn't get a single TV or PPV.

 

Philly, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Chicago, Boston and Atlanta were all hot markets and not a single PPV.

 

On the flipside they ran 4 years straight at a bike rally in front of people who didn't care and didn't pay just so the boss and his friends could party.

[Loss]

When I think of WCW, the towns where it seemed like they were always emanating from were Saginaw, Michigan and Fargo, North Dakota.

[El-P]

When I think of WCW, the towns where it seemed like they were always emanating from were Saginaw, Michigan (...)

You're not the only one :

 

Line of the night : "Saginaw, Michigan !" Shane Douglas adressing the fans, asking them if they were ready for a Revolution. They were in Winston-Salem, NC. (Fall Brawl 1999)

[Death From Above]

Did the lack of Canadian expansion have something to do with WWE having deals with arenas? Or am I just making up a bad theory here.

[Dooley]

Can someone explain why it took WCW until 1999 to finally do a show in Canada? Why did they only hold two televised cards there when it seemed like a place they could actually make some money?

They ran actually ran some houses shows in Ontario back in 1990. They held a card at the Skydome in 1993 and drew decent crowd in 1997 in Montreal for Hogan vs Jacques Rougeau.

 

I totally blanked on the Skydome show. According to Cawthon's site, there were less than 4,000 people in a a stadium that can hold 70,000. Yup.

 

I had also blanked that the Hogan-Rougeau match happened on a proper WCW show, for some reason I had it in my head that it was a Rougeau-promoted indy show.

[El-P]

WEEK 47 (November 22 to 27, 1999)

 

Match of the week : Bret Hart vs Jeff Jarrett (Nitro). Earlier on, Jarrett had attacked Bret and stole the title belt. Didn't take long. This is solid brawling style. Jarrett channels Lawler at times with excellent looking fistdrops on the announcer's table. Didn't hurt that Bret's selling made them look awesome. Jarrett doesn't belong in the main event, at least not until he fucking gets over to that point, but as a worker he's right there, I'm really enjoying his work thus far, although I enjoy his earlier more chickenshit style more. Ends when Dustin Rhodes ko's Jarrett while Creative Control is being chased off by the referee. Bret's reaction to Jarrett being KO is pretty nice, going for teh sharpshooter but instead just pinning the guy with a "hey, whatever" expression.

 

Awful special gimmick match of the week : International flag match : Dean Malenko vs Chris Benoit (Nitro). The winner must get his own flag. Dean goes for the Canadian flag because he wants to burn it down. At one point Benoit gets the gas can and the announcer wonder if he's gonna set Malenko on fire. Yawn.... Big schmozz, the Revolution jumps in, threaten to burn both the Canadian and US flag alltogether, but Bret saves the day and raises the US flag (while Benoit gets the Canadian one). This Benoit vs Malenko feud is an abomination.

 

Goofy angle of the week : Liz, Meng and a shark cage (Nitro). Luger "books" a match between Liz and Meng to get revenge on Liz who screwed up at the PPV. Liz gets locks herself into a shark cage. Luger talks her into giving him the key, then betrays her and bring her into the ring with a forklift. This is goofy as hell. Meng acts like a beast trying to get into the cage until Luger actually offers him the key, while looking afraid as hell (Luger is really funny). Meng gets the claw on Luger and still tries to destroy the shark cage instead of using the key. The Sting runs in, beats up Meng with a baseball bat and frees Liz. Later that night, Meng gets Sting in a no DQ match. Liz wants to help Sting back with some mace, but Sting will have none of this, as he doesn't trust her. Luger shows up, Sting ends up in the claw, Liz wants to console him but he pushes her away. Although it doesn't deliver much in term of good matches, I enjoy this whole feud, Luger is excellent doing the funny chickenshit, Liz is hot as hell and does her job well, and Sting is actually quite good too.

 

Monster main event of the week : Outsiders vs Goldberg & Sid Vicious (Nitro). Goldie was supposed to get a surprise partner. When Sid shows up behind him, the announcer act like he's allied with the Outsiders, forgetting the storylines of the previous weeks. Anyway, this is pretty decent considering who's involved, four big guys working a classic (meaning "traditionnal") tag match complete with fake hot tag and getting some heat on Goldie before the double spear. Nash bumps extremely well for Goldie's offense. Sid is comical. Nice enough stuff, really.

 

Debuts of the week : Nitro Girl Skye, Johnny the Bull, Big Vito, Symphony (Nitro) Goofy skits galore backstage with the mafiosi, a swerve heel turn from Skye/Stacy Keibler (yeah, really) and Symphony (not named, she was Ryan "slap me" Shamrock) standing next to the Maestro playing the piano during every backstage segment (until David Flair destroys it in an access of crazed rage).

 

Cruiserweight match of the week : Juventud Guerrera vs Villano IV (Saturday Night) These guys are releguated to opening the C-show, with a nice little match. It's both refreshing and sad.

 

Let's split a faction up of the week : The Filthy Animals are falling apart (Nitro). During a tag match, Kidman sees Eddie fooling around with Torrie on the screens (Why ? Because.) Gets jealous, blah blah blah. They have a match, Eddie beats up Kidman pretty good, meanwhile the Revolution jump on Konnan and injure his right arm. Torrie, trting to signal it to Kidman prevents him from doing his finisher on Eddie. Eddie takes control and frogsplashes Kidman. Leading to the :

 

Misogynistic line of the week : "I don't want to blame one person, but a woman has split up the Filthy Animals." Tony Schiavone. Wait, what ? The Revolution fuked up both Rey and Konnan and Kidman just acted like a stupid macho fool when Torrie and Eddie were doing nothing bad, but a *woman* split up the team ? Glorious. Really sums up Russo's way of treating women. What a loser.

 

Funniest line of the week : "Is that supposed to hurt ?" Scott Hudson after Juvy did a People's elbow on Villano IV.

 

So, Creative Control won the tag team titles, Russo had a hard-on for these two stiffs. Curt Hennig swerved Buff Bagwell and aligned himself with the Powers to Be. Midnight is still popping up to help Booker T. Tons of shitty backstage vignette, the worst being Duggan's as a janitor. Roddy Piper made a comeback but the Powers to Be made him a lowly referee. We're going toward a babyface match between Bret and Goldberg at Starrcade. Most of the undercard is FF material at this point, really, all the titles are dead except the world title. Luger/Sting/Liz are the most entertaining part of this wretched product angle wise.

 

Vince Russo Tally

 

Title changes : 11

 

Swerves : 3

 

Special gimmick matches on free TV : 9

 

On-a-pole matches : 2

 

WWF references : 18

 

Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 15

 

Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 17

[Death From Above]

Luger just straight up doing a Wile E. Coyote gimmick is something that never occurred to me until just now, but after reading these last few weeks they really should have just made that a thing.

[El-P]

WEEK 48 ( November 29 to December 4, 1999)

 

Match of the week by default : Jushin Liger vs Chris Benoit (Thunder). Yeah, by default, as they work a decent little Thunder match while Juvy is on commentary talking nonsense and dropping The Rock and Chris Jericho's catchphrases. Because you see, Juvy won the IWGP title from Liger on Nitro, and injured his left arm in the process. The end of the match sees La Parka & Psychosis jump on Benoit & Liger. Van you picture the great match these four could have together, in a non-retarded wrestling comapny ?

 

Insulting match of the week : Juvy wins the IWGP title by crashing a bottle of tequila over Jushin Liger's head (Nitro). I have no word. Oh, yes I have, the entire match was an afterthought, the main thing was Brad Armstrong on commentary doing the awful Buzzkill gimmick, refering to "Big Brother". On Thunder he would come out totally imitating his brother, complete with the NAO copycat music theme. Embarrassing on all front.

 

Insulting spot of the week : The Outsiders dropping the TV title belt in the trash can (Nitro). Yeah, why not. It's our product and our history, but what the hell, titles don't mean anything, right ? This is shit, and it's not even a meaningfull heel action, it's just fucking with WCW wrestling fans.

 

Funny spot of the week : Liz & Lex Luger in the mud (Nitro). So they had a mud pit, and Luger gently dropped Liz in it as a payback for the PPV screw up. The best part is of course Sting showing up behind Luger and pushing it into the mud. Luger is a trooper and finds ways to take like five bumps back into the pit. Liz fell on her ass as she got out, and Sting kinda helped her walk backstage.

 

Awful gimmick matches of the week : Dr. Death vs Jerry Only / Outsiders vs Goldberg & Sid Vicious vs Bret Hart & Chris Benoit, cage matches (Nitro). The first one is a complete abortion, with BBQ sauce dropped on Oklahoma and shit like that. The second one in boring as all hell, nobody does anything until Jeff Jarrett shows up (because anyone can interfere in a cage match, of course), it all turns into a big schmozz and Benoit, you guessed it, does the headdrop from the top of the cage. Again. Can we somewhat blame Vince Russo for Benoit losing his brain or is it pushing it way too far ? I'm tempted though...

 

Misogynistic bullshit and woman abuses of the week : Juvy "fucking" a fat girl from behind, Nitro Girls catfights, Jeff Jarrett busting a guitar on Mona, Ronda Singh in the mud pit with Roddy Piper, David Flair abusing Symphony (Nitro/Thunder). Pick your one. The worst by far was Juvy "reviving" that fat girl (I believe it was Leilani Kai but I'm not sure) after she choked eating some stuff form the catering table, and mimicking fucking her from behind. It went forever and was really really embarrasing.

 

Ok, this week was really atrocious, and would be enough to throw the towel. The women stuff were just unseasy to watch at some point, as there were so many humiliating, abusing situations that my jaw dropped after a while. I don't put Liz in the mud with the rest since Luger really saved it by taking most of the attention and being the focus of the angle, but the other stuff... We know now that Madusa is actually manipulating Karagias (so she's a whore, basically, but it's a heel move, I guess) to guess a cruiserweight title match at Starrcade. Wait, isn't she, you know, a woman ? Who cares at this stage. Another really fucking idiotic angle is the Revolution taking their independance and bashing the USA, so we have to get more janitor dressed Duggan on TV. Great.... I'll pass on the whole Disco & Lash screwing around with Johnny thz Bull & Big Vito, or on Norman's Smiley's matches. Fit Finlay came back and cut off Brian Knobbs' mullet. This week was 95% complete shit, really.

 

Vince Russo Tally

Title changes : 12

 

Swerves : 3

 

Special gimmick matches on free TV : 11

 

On-a-pole matches : 2

 

WWF references : 21

 

Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 22

 

Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 18

[Death From Above]

Juvi's win was the unauthorized title change thing wasn't it?

 

I always wondered why Liger even went along with it.

[El-P]

Juvi's win was the unauthorized title change thing wasn't it?

Yep. Liger won it back the next week from... Psychosis.

 

I always wondered why Liger even went along with it.

He was sent by NJ to work for WCW, I don't think he had much choice. I think I remember hearing New Japan was really pissed about it though, hence the fact they never recognized it.

FWIW, when Muta was sent to WCW in 2000, he also had to deal with the shit Russo had him do and hated every minute of it.

[Troy]

Reading these make me want to pick up Will's Death of WCW comp

[jackwebb]

Line of the week : "You're half the man I am. And I've got half the brain you do." Sid Vicious (Nitro). This is pretty legendary. To his credit, he stayed very serious while Nash & Hall were busting out in the ring, didn't blink and delivered the rest of his promo which was actually pretty decent since it was more of a serious babyface one. The line was one of the greatest fuck up you can think off though, especially since the whole thing about the Outsiders was saying Sid was an idiot. Since Russo is such a smart ass, they actually reshowed the fuck-up on Thunder in the video package for the PPV. What a bunch of...

Sid claimed in one of his shoots, the second RF Video one I believe, that the line was written for him that way. My first instinct was to think he is trying to just cover up an embarrassing mistake. Considering the writer, the reactions shots, and the followups, I could see it being true.

 

[Johnny Guitar]

When I think of WCW, the towns where it seemed like they were always emanating from were Saginaw, Michigan and Fargo, North Dakota.

They ran some obscure towns for sure. I think Fargo or some other town in the Dakota's (Not Sturgis!) they actually built up and drew well in during the boom years. Although to be honest when I think of WCW towns it's still Crockett Country, Georgia,Florida, Chicago, Baltimore & Philly.

 

Did the lack of Canadian expansion have something to do with WWE having deals with arenas? Or am I just making up a bad theory here.

WWE had some deals on some buildings in some cities which locked WCW out. St Louis is a good example. After the Kiel Auditorium and Checkerdome were closed in the early 90's. The only building (20,000 or less) was the new Kiel Center. WCW,if they wanted to promote in St Louis had to go the stadium route. TWA dome in ST louis. They were faced with a similar situation in Houston, San Antonio and New Orleans too.

 

Can someone explain why it took WCW until 1999 to finally do a show in Canada? Why did they only hold two televised cards there when it seemed like a place they could actually make some money?

They ran actually ran some houses shows in Ontario back in 1990. They held a card at the Skydome in 1993 and drew decent crowd in 1997 in Montreal for Hogan vs Jacques Rougeau.

 

I totally blanked on the Skydome show. According to Cawthon's site, there were less than 4,000 people in a a stadium that can hold 70,000. Yup.

 

I had also blanked that the Hogan-Rougeau match happened on a proper WCW show, for some reason I had it in my head that it was a Rougeau-promoted indy show.

 

WWE had definatley locked them out of the Maple Leaf Gardens, but they could have run the Ricoh Colisem,which was 10,000 seat.

[Dewar]

The Fargodome Nitro I went to (covered earlier in this thread, it was the episode the Armstrongs beat Raven, and Flair was in the nuthouse) had a big crowd, not sure how much of it was papered though.

[Johnny Guitar]

The Fargodome Nitro I went to (covered earlier in this thread, it was the episode the Armstrongs beat Raven, and Flair was in the nuthouse) had a big crowd, not sure how much of it was papered though.

According to History of WWE. It was 11,492 attendance from 8813 paid.

[Tim Cooke]

When WCW hit the Dakota's and surrounding area's in August 1999, the crowds gave a lot of the wrestlers good heat, which was virtually non existant for the prior 2-3 months. Even Goldberg's temporary bad music was a little bit over. On the downside, Hogan got more over in these territories and that certainly didn't hurt his face turn.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Meltzer told a story of Bischoff telling people that the new WCW set of 1999 would turn around the ratings. Even Vince never was that delusional in his most manic phase - at least in the professional wrestling world.

[El-P]

WEEK 49 (December 06 to 11, 1999)

 

Match of the week : Goldberg vs Jeff Jarrett (Nitro) This is a lumberjack improvised by guets ref Roddy Piper after a huge brawl involving everyone that would act as lumberjacks in this match. This is how far the standarts have fallen, this is nothing more than a nice very short match, and yet it comes apart in the horrible context as being much better. Jarrett is working a very old-school style, efficiently doing a sleeper spot of Goldie, that actually gets great reaction from the audience, clapping along the faces lumberjacks to cheer Goldberg on. Sid Vicious is at his best in this cheerleader role BTW. Solid work, a few explosive Goldie spots, Jarrett is always very smooth. Nice enough stuff.

 

Honorable mention of the week : Chris Benoit vs Kevin Nash (Nitro) Nice to see Nash get some time with a great worker. The difference between and Sid is so striking after watching all those Benoit vs Sid matches. Hall is at ringside guest announcing, sitting on the top of a ladder. Good ending as Sid saves Benoit when Hall was gonna do the Outsider's Edge on the ladder. I'd rather have a long Benoit sv Nash match rather than Benoit vs Hall at this point, but I'll settle for this.

 

Title change than never happened of the week : Jushin Liger wins back the IWGP title from Psychosis (Nitro). SInce Juvy hurt his arm, he can't defend the title, so Psych does the job. Again. Poor guy. Anyway, this is a throwaway match and a total afterthough. That title switch never happened.

 

C-show match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Devon Storm (Saturday Night). There's really not much worthwile on Saturday Night anymore, but once in a while we get matches like this one. Devon Storm was better than I remembered him to be. Kinda crazy like Sabu, but not just a funky spot monkey like most of the young guys like Lash Leroux were. Benoit gives him a nice competitive match here.

 

Guitar shot of the week : Jeff Jarrett crashes a guitar on Madusa (Nitro). Totally unecessary, comes from nowhere and serves no purposes as Jarrett just shows up in the ring to challenge Goldberg. The worst in this is that the audience pops for it big time. I hate the wrestling audience of the Attitude Era so much, popping for woman abuse *from a heel*. It's bad enough when babyface do it, but popping when a heel hits a woman with a freaking guitar, it's just retarded and shows that the audience just wanted this kind of stupid garbage spots. In a way, they deserved the shit Russo delivered to them.

 

Yeah, I'm getting badly burned out quickly by Russo & co. With mostly zero good wrestling on TV and a majority of idiotic angles, this product is just testing my patience pretty bad. This week Liz aligned with Sting finally, although you can see the swerve coming. The undercard is so much filled with shit (Revolution vs Duggan, Lash & Disco vs the italian boys, Norman Smiley hardocre champion, Dr. Death used only as a backdrop for that petty joke that is Oklahoma, The Wall getting more attention than Berlyn, Harlem Heat & Midnight, Nitro Girls fighting with each others, and I probably forget some other crap) that there is nothing much you can grab onto to not give up. No wonder Russo and Ferrara were fired so quickly (the fact they were rehired is MIND FUCKING BLOWING). Only one month to go after Starrcade and the first step of that torture will be over (to some extent), but going through that shit is something I would discourage anyone from doing. It's just no fun.

 

Vince Russo Tally

 

Title changes : 14

 

Swerves : 3

 

Special gimmick matches on free TV : 13

 

On-a-pole matches : 2

 

WWF references : 27

 

Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 24

 

Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 19

[Death From Above]

I wouldn't blame you if the pace slowed. I mean, you're absorbing a week's worth of Russo per day.

 

There has to be some sort of inoculation you should take before doing that to protect yourself from the radiation.

[El-P]

I feel I want to get it over as quick as possible. Although I now it will only get less worse until it gets really worse by mid-00...

 

WEEK 50 (December 13 to 18, 1999)

 

Stupid gimmick match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Jeff Jarrett in a bunkhouse brawl involving a ladder (Nitro). Way to spoil both your big gimmick match for your upcoming PPV. This is pretty good, unsurprisingly, but the fact Benoit took yet another bump from high places on free TV is cringe worthy. Russo was breaking down these guys for his stupid crash TV. Ironically, they would get together on PPV, as Scott Hall would do another one of his magic disappearance act, maybe because he was fucked up, maybe because he didn't want to do the job.

 

Promo of the week : Shane Douglas (Nitro). This guy deserves all the credit in the world for cutting intense and heated promos to hype up this ridiculous angle and match with Duggan. He almost, almost makes me care about it, despite the fact it's another jingoist angle leading to more terrible matches. The Radicals sure did themselves a favor by jumping to WWF, but to me they should have jumped when Russo showed up, not when he was hired, I don't think Dean & Eddie had more bad matches than during this period and Benoit was breaking his body every week on free TV. This is also pretty much the worst period for Douglas in a major company, as I don't think even the infamous Dean Douglas nor the Dudes are lower than this Revolution crap.

 

Comeback of the week : Chris Champagne Kanyon (Nitro). He's working a Hollywwod star wannabee gimmick now. This leads to him snubbing Bam Bam Bigelow and having a match with DDP, who seemingly is slowly turning back babyface I think, on Thunder. I like Kanyon a lot, but this is clearly not my favourite gimmick for him. Plus the involvement of Mr. Biggs only adds distraction and bad comedy to a product that doesn't need it. Don't remember Mr. Biggs ? Well, me neither. He was Clarence Mason in WWF. Because every former WWF scrubs must get a job it seems.

 

Debut of the week : The Artist Formely Known As Prince Iaukea (Nitro). He actually debuted on the previous Thunder but what the hell. ANother gimmick that's just a not so funny pun that's already dated. The only good things about it is Sharmell, who looks gorgeous. Iaukea still is a mediocre worker rendered plain bad by him working the gimmick which consists of him licking his finger a lot and doing had gestures in the air.

 

The main event scene is so terribly booked that it doesn't even need a mention. Bret & Goldie won the tag belts the previous week only to lose it this week to the Outsiders, in a match in which Goldie was alone for most of the match as Bret had been "jumped" in the back. They build the whole thing on Bret and Goldberg being allied against the evil Outsiders. We know where this is going. The undercard is wretched. Only good match on paper for Starrcade is... well, Benoit vs Jarrett, although we don't know that yet. The only match I care about is Lex vs Sting, because the build-up as been rather old-school and fun (although you can see where they are going from miles away). Madusa vs Evan Karagias has been a way to show lot of boobs and catfights and fondling on their way to an intergender match that will not be good. Vampiro vs Steve Williams is some of the worst TV of the year thus far. So is Disco/Lash vs Johnny the Bull/Vito, just downright putrid. The hardcore division is a joke that has overstayed its welcome. The tag match between Harlem Heat & Creative Control will suck and there is not title attached to that anymore, but they are already teasing some problems between Stevie & Booker *again*. All because of Midnight, because that's what women do, they split up teams, those bitches. Revolution vs Duggan & mysterie partners is awful and will be awful. Sid vs Nash promises nothing but a terrible match like they had earlier in the year, or in 1995. DDP vs David Flair is nothing, we've seen David been Diamond Cut already on Nitro, and David can't work a lick anyway. Starrcade looks just terrible on paper, and will of course end up being worse than that thanks to the infamous finish Russo is building to, that damn creative genius.

 

Vince Russo Tally

 

Title changes : 15

 

Swerves : 3

 

Special gimmick matches on free TV : 17

 

On-a-pole matches : 2

 

WWF references : 28

 

Woman abuse/mysoginistic bullshit : 24

 

Shooty-shooty comments/angles : 19