The SmarK Rant for WCW Monday Nitro – 01.10.00

The SmarK Rant for WCW Monday Nitro – 01.10.00

“The torture continues” according to a soundbite from Mike Tenay during the recap of last week. Well there’s an apt analogy.

Also, and I know this will come as a huge shock to you all, but there was some pretty major discontent happening backstage in WCW at this point. You’ve probably heard about it before. This is also a fairly infamous episode of the show that has ramifications we’ll get to later on.

LAST TIME ON THUNDER: Bret Hart faces Terry Funk in a hardcore match that ended up being one of Bret’s last matches in a very long time, adding to a concussion that ended his career.

Live from Buffalo, NY, amazingly still doing crowds of 9000 with 5800 paid during the darkest days of the promotion. Sorry, darkest days YET.

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay & Bobby Heenan

WCW World tag team title: David Flair & Crowbar v. Perry Saturn & Dean Malenko v. Kidman & Konnan

Big brawl to start while Shane Douglas joins us on commentary and promises a mystery partner for the Revolution at the Souled Out PPV on the weekend. Yeah that was quite the payoff if I remember correctly. So this is just a chaotic mess and they fight all over with no point to it, and the Revolution guys randomly wander off into the crowd as the announcers clarify that it’s falls count anywhere. Douglas and Malenko put Rey onto a table by the ramp and Saturn jumps off a balcony with a splash through the table, which is coincidentally situated on top of a giant crash pad. Who does this guy think he is, Sting? But then David Flair runs over and pins Saturn to retain at 4:43. Only Russo would do a falls count anywhere three-way title match to open the show and have it run 4 minutes. *1/2

Back at the desk, Tony announces that Commissioner Funk is “booking the show on the fly” so they don’t know any matches upcoming. Well that should help the rating.

Meanwhile, the nWo shows up and gives Scott Steiner some hookers as a birthday present. Terry Funk and his army of old fogies are watching on with disapproval, because we all know that old wrestlers would NEVER be unfaithful to their wives or indulge in drinking. Reminds me of Bohemian Rhapsody, where there was a whole running theme of Freddie Mercury doing drugs and sleeping around while the other members of Queen, QUEEN I REMIND YOU, all give him disapproving speeches about his lewd behavior and rabble-rousing.

Oklahoma v. Asya

This is, for those who have blocked it out, building up to Ed Ferrera challenging Madusa for the WCW Cruiserweight title at the PPV in a real match that was actually booked on PPV and people were expected to pay money to watch. To build towards that match, Good ol’ Oklahoma runs down all the “hoochies” in the arena and issues an open challenge to any woman who wants to face him. Also, to underscore the incredibly tone deaf irony at play with Russo’s “booking”, this match features two characters acting as parody of two far more successful WWF creations. Anyway this “match” never actually happens as Oklahoma attacks her from behind and hits her with the BARBEQUE SAUCE OF DOOM, which prompts Madusa to save, dressed in a ridiculous outfit and blue wig, before Oklahoma attacks her as well with a broom and lays her out. I guess this would be fine if it was leading to someone getting revenge on Oklahoma, but spoiler, it’s not.

Terry Funk and his crew of old guys join us, which in this case is Arn Anderson, Paul Orndorff & Larry Zbyszko. So they ramble about the nWo and how they’re about tradition until Kevin Nash and Jeff Jarrett interrupt and Kev just buries them as senior citizens who were at the early bird dinner. So Funk decides to make some special stipuations for JJ tonight, booking him in three matches tonight just like at the PPV: A wrestling match, a bunkhouse brawl and then a cage match. And each match will be against an opponent of Funk’s choice. “I just hope they don’t die before they get to the ring” notes Jarrett, drawing a laugh from the crowd. This segment is a disaster and it’s just dragging on forever and Nash has to keep prompting Funk because he forgot to mention that Chris Benoit is going to be the special referee for the matches. And also Bret Hart is going to face Kevin Nash for the World title. And if they don’t do the match, Funk will strip Bret of the title and suspend them for a year without pay. Nash: “I’ve saved my money, unlike you, I’ll take the year off.” Funk has no answer for that one as this just dies even more. STOP THE DAMN MATCH, THAT MAN HAS A FAMILY! Oh my god this segment is a flaming dumpster going off a cliff. You wouldn’t think that putting Terry Funk and the nWo on a live microphone and letting them go would be such a disaster, but I’m just embarrassed for everyone involved. As Dave notes in the Observer review, Nash “carved them up like a Thanksgiving turkey” on the mic and I can’t disagree.

Meanwhile, Arn Anderson checks out an arriving limo, but it’s just Kimberly Page and not whoever he was waiting for.

DDP and Buff Bagwell join us in a segment where they’re not allowed to fight for 5:00, in advance of their match at Souled Out. The storyline is apparently that Buff was screwing Kimberly and I’m not 100% sure who the babyface is supposed to be. So they do their promo battle for the five minutes, mostly just making comments about how small each other’s dicks are, and then the time expires and they quickly do a brawl to end the segment.

Meanwhile, neither Nash or Bret want to lay down for the other one.

Bunkhouse Brawl: Jeff Jarrett v. George “The Animal” Steele

This is the first match of the trio for Jarrett tonight, and also the first match since the opener an hour earlier. What a great Nitro taping this must have been for the fans. George throws garbage cans at Jeff and does his turnbuckle gimmick, but Jeff hits him with the guitar, only for Arn to give Jeff a spinebuster and put George on top for a fast count from Benoit at 1:00.

Stevie Ray joins Mean Gene after turning on Booker T last week, noting that THE MAN didn’t want them in WCW and kept them down, making sure that Booker could only be TV champion. So Booker answers and won’t fight his brother at Souled Out or any other time, but Stevie hits him with the SLAPJACK and that convinces Booker to go ahead with the match. Finally a decent segment! Even though no one wants to see them fighting.

AWF World title: Tito Santana v. Jeff Jarrett

I’m just gonna make this a title defense in my head canon because it’s more fun that way. Also this is apparently a Dungeon match, where leaving the ring means you lose. Tito gets a flying forearm and goes to work on the leg, but Jeff kicks him to the apron and Tito has a really hard time making it there, taking two or three tries. Back in, Jarrett puts the boots to him, but Benoit pulls him off and Tito makes the comeback. Jarrett hits the Stroke while a football guy comes into the ring, but Paul Orndorff piledrives Jarrett and Benoit does another fast count for the pin at 2:31. Tito retains the AWF World title! Arriba! Big crowd reaction for this one but you can’t survive on nostalgia stuff past the initial pop.

Tank Abbott joins us, calling Doug Dillinger a duck and quacking at him until he comes out to answer. So than Tank knocks him cold and security hits the ring and cuffs him, allowing Jerry Flynn to come out and kick Tank in the head. And Tank just laughs it off. This man was almost the World champion, remember. And honestly given some of the other choices for champion later in the year, would it really have been THAT bad to put it on him?

Cage match: Jeff Jarrett v. Jimmy Snuka

I don’t think anyone was expecting this one-off freakshow match to be particularly business-altering, but it sure did have some ramifications. Benoit was taken out by Jarrett before the match, so we appear to have no referee for this one, but Benoit triumphantly returns from the attack we didn’t see. I have no idea what the point of that was. So he beats on Jarrett with chops and tosses him into the cage, but he goes up to do something and Jarrett crotches him and then leaves the cage and retrieves his guitar. And then all the oldies go into the cage and triple-team Jarrett, as Snuka does a very ill-conceived dive from the top of the cage onto Jarrett, and then Benoit hits his own diving headbutt off the cage and Snuka pins Jarrett at 3:23. This was another one where it wasn’t actually a match as such. So of course, that splash from Snuka concussed Jarrett and took him out of the PPV.

Meanwhile, the ladies of the night continue screwing Scott Steiner literally to the point of catatonia. Hopefully HE didn’t get concussed as well! And after the break, the Old Age Outlaws torture a tired Scott by washing his mouth out with a bar of soap. Wow what a payoff.

WCW World title: Bret Hart v. Kevin Nash

Nash beats on him with knees in the corner as Bobby declares that we GOTTA order Souled Out on the weekend, as though anything on this show has done anything to sell that show at all. Bret comes back and chokes him out on the ropes, but Nash beats him down with elbows and they fight to the floor. Back in the ring, Bret takes out the knee and goes to work on it. The crowd has no patience for this wrestling stuff and boos the match with “boring” chants. So Nash comes back with the elbows in the corner but they beat on each other some more and Nash goes low for a double down. Snake Eyes gets two. But then Bret kicks him in the nuts and does his own comeback, before Nash slugs him down again and the crowd is just booing the shit out of the match and waiting for the inevitable run-in finish. Nash with the sideslam, but Arn runs out and beats on Nash with a pipe, demanding to take over as referee here. And then Sid comes out and takes out Bret as they lower the cage again and it’s some kind of no content at 10:00. But Sid powerbombs Bret and Arn counts the pin anyway. I have no idea what the cage is supposed to have to do with anything. Oh and Terry Funk brings out a flaming branding iron and burns Nash to end the show. Sure, why not. That was also Bret’s last match in the company, and what a way to go. ½*.

I would in some ways say this was a bit better than the previous week, although there was nothing for good wrestling whatsoever. But it was certainly a bit calmer than the complete three-ring circus of the tag team title tournament. However, it did end the career of Bret Hart and remove Jeff Jarrett from the PPV, plus was the end of Vince Russo and directly led to the WCW departures of Chris Benoit and the Radicalz, so you can’t say it didn’t have stuff going on.

I guess we’re redoing Souled Out 2000 this week. What a vacation week that’s gonna be for me.