[1998-08-24-WCW-Nitro] Booker T and Stevie Ray / Bret Hart vs Booker T

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Stevie Ray argues with Booker T. This didn't lead anywhere until Russo started booking. This leads to a scheduled Bret Hart vs Booker T match with the lack of superstar reaction Bret gets in a town like Chicago really depressing me. Bret's promo really felt like the type of thing they'd do during a commercial break, and I wonder if there was miscommunication. Booker's entrance music starts and he doesn't come out. They go to a commercial and when we come back, we see Booker T laid out holding his knee while Stevie yells at him. Stevie ends up coming out to confront Bret Hart and the NWO comes out as well. Bret tries to convince him to join the NWO and succeeds. Hogan can't even be bothered to show up for the recruitment. Bret is trying, but because he's selling something that makes no sense, he's struggling big time. This whole thing was laid out so horribly.

[Zenjo]

2 weeks ago on Nitro the Giant chokeslams Stevie Ray costing him the TV title.

 

1 week ago on Nitro the Giant chokeslams Stevie Ray potentially costing him the TV title.

 

This week on Nitro Stevie Ray joins the Giant in the NWO with no ill feelings.

 

Bret is really struggling to find the words that will make some kind of sense of this crap.

[soup23]

I guess Stevie took the place of JEricho? Anyway this was completely dumb and unnecessary. Feels like I'm typing that way too much lately in regards to WCW.

[PeteF3]

Dumb and unnecessary is a good way of putting it. Bret can come *close* to saving all this because his delivery and gravitas still carry weight, but it's not quite enough. At one point Schiavone would incredulously bring up the Giant chokeslamming Ray a bunch of times, even if he couldn't even try to explain it--now he's given up on even doing that.