The SmarK Rant for WCW Monday Nitro – 08.28.00

The SmarK Rant for WCW Monday Nitro – 08.28.00

With the Network going away in two weeks, we’re probably reaching the end of these unless I “move” to the Philippines to continue on with my subscription that way. There’s no indication that anything but the PPVs are moving to Netflix.

Live from Las Cruces, NM, drawing 4500 and 3881 paid. It’s a small building that’s packed with excited college kids. There’s a lesson there, as much as I am loathe for anyone to learn anything from WCW in 2000.

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone and Mark Madden

Oh hey, company’s dying again? Time to reassemble the nWo.

Vince Russo shows up to start, with Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner and Jeff Jarrett in the limo with him.

Three Count v. Vampiro & ICP

Great Muta joins us on commentary for some alleged comedy, as he grunts in Japanese and Madden “translates” him. They all brawl on the floor and Three Count hits Vamp with a triple team facebuster slam for two. ICP saves and Three Count dumps them out while Muta makes guttural noises on commentary. Violent J hits a press slam on Shannon, into a flying legdrop from Shaggy, and the Dark Carpenters get the win at 2:40. So Tank makes the save from a beatdown, but then the dorks beat him down, so the Demon has to come out and save HIM. Muta sprays Demon with the green mist, which the camera oddly cuts away from, and then Sting comes out and beats everyone up with the baseball bat to clear the ring. This was a giant mess but lots of stuff happened. The crowd seemed like they were really hot for the match but the edited was so bizarre that it ended up leaving the audio all muted for most of it.

Vince Russo and his new buddies join us, and apparently this was his plan all along, the culmination of 11 months planning. The target is now Goldberg, who should have just signed his release last week and escaped the wrath of Vinnie Ru. Jeff Jarrett books himself into a Bunkhouse Brawl with Mike Awesome at Fall Brawl. Scott Steiner challenges Goldberg to a match at Fall Brawl after making it clear that he’s better looking than Goldberg’s girlfriend from last week. Kevin Nash claims that he only turned babyface to sell his merchandise to the idiot fans, and now that it’s all sold out, he doesn’t give a damn about the fans and never has. I love shoot comments that aren’t supposed to be shoot comments. Also, hey, that’s an actual explanation for the heel turn, so I’ll take it. Russo is so excited by all this that he books Kevin Nash against Booker T TONIGHT IN THIS VERY RING for the World title. With Jeff Jarrett as the special referee and Scott Steiner as guest enforcer on the floor. But then Booker interrupts, still trying to get “Save the drama for your mama” over as a catchphrase and failing, and promises to beat them all tonight. Then it’s the Cat, who is still squabbling with Russo over who’s in charge (Russo: “I’m from New York, which means I’m a GENTLEMAN!”) and he goes to the ring and takes a beating from the nWo. Then the Filthy Animals try to save for some reason and they get beat up, and finally Goldberg pops up on the big screen and he’s digging a grave for Russo in the New Mexico desert.

Meanwhile, the Cat goes out on a stretcher while Russo is freaking out in his office about potentially being kidnapped by Goldberg and buried in the desert. His allies all leave to deal with other stuff, and Goldberg calls him like a serial killer and promises to come get him soon. This show is batshit crazy so far but it’s pretty entertaining at least.

Tigress v. Paisley v. Major Gunns

Tigress immediately pins Gunns with a jackknife cradle at 0:30, but then they clarify it was only a two count, even though the bell rings and the ref counted three and the match was announced as being over. And then Paisley walks out on the match anyway and I guess it’s over.

Meanwhile, Rey Mysterio goes to annoy the Natural Born Thrillers, which allows the Animals to attack and lay them all out while Konnan makes trash talk in the background.

Meanwhile, Jeff Jarrett finds his trusty pickup truck filled with guitars.

Meanwhile, Mike Awesome is now dressed in a leisure suit because he’s the 70s Guy. And he wants a warmup match with Rick Steiner TONIGHT IN THIS VERY RING.

Cage match: Kronik v. The Harris Brothers

The winner has to handcuff the other team to the cage so that no one actually has to do a job. We get the usual punching and kicking from these guys and an interesting fish-eye camera angle from the corner. But then they immediately fall through the side of the cage, which was apparently put together by the ring crew’s non-union (New) Mexican equivalents, and they all brawl on the floor for some kind of double countout in a cage match at 2:30. They couldn’t even book a finish for a match with no pins! DUD

Prisoner of War match: Lance Storm v. Sgt. A-Wall

So Storm challenges the MIA to a POW match, where the winner gets to claim one member of the loser’s team as a prisoner, but then MIA decides that Storm has to beat A-Wall in a tables match for that to happen. So they quickly fight to the apron and Skipper hits Wall with the flag, and he falls through the table at 1:00, and Storm kidnaps Major Gunns and it’s TO THE BACK.

Meanwhile, Sting accepts the challenge of Great Muta that happened off-screen earlier in the show.

Rick Steiner v. Mike Awesome

They announce that they’re going to be touring Australia in December and hitting Sydney, which I’m sure is great news for all the people in Brisbane who can just drive over there and see the show according to Bryan Alvarez. They immediately fight to the floor and Awesome throws a table into the ring and sets it up in the corner, even though we literally just saw a guy go through a table in the last segment. Awesome goes for the powerbomb and Jeff Jarrett runs in and hits him with a baseball bat, after establishing that he had a literal truck full of guitars to use as weapons, putting Steiner on top for the pint 2:00.

WCW World title: Booker T v. Kevin Nash

Nash immediately sends Booker to the floor, so Jarrett does a fast count and tries to count them both out. Russo gets all pissy about it, so Jeff sits him down at the commentary table again and Booker hits a sideslam for two. Booker slugs away in the corner. Nash puts him down for two and Jarrett counts normal speed, which has Russo pissed off again, so Steiner distracts Jarrett while Nash hits a big boot for a visual pinfall. Jarrett sends Scott to the back and pushes Russo away from the ring while Vince freaks out about Jarrett screwing him over and making it a fair match. Nash with the choke in the corner, but Booker superkicks him and makes the comeback. Axe kick and he goes up with the missile dropkick and Bookend, but Russo gives Jarrett a guitar, and Jeff hits Booker while the announcers are like “OH MY GOD IT WAS A SETUP ALL ALONG!” Gee you think? And then Nash pulls down the strap sarcastically, hits the Poochiebomb, and wins the title at 7:31. This was way overbooked for absolutely no reason, since they already had the match stacked against Booker 3-on-1, and Nash was barely motivated to more than lift his leg for the corner choke despite being booked to win the World title over the guy supposedly pushed as their big star. *1/2

Not gonna lie I’m starting to regret my earlier expression of enjoyment of this show because it’s all been downhill from there.

Meanwhile, Booker disgustedly wants to leave the building and go home, but Goldberg shows up and tells him to stick around for some revenge. I’m glad they’ve at least decided Goldberg is a babyface again.

Shane Douglas does a promo from the upper deck, and he’s still not done with Billy Kidman and wants a Scaffold Match at Fall Brawl. But then Crowbar randomly attacks him with a trash can, and Douglas backdrops him off the baloncy and through a table which I hope to god has a crash pad under it. Daffney is also there with a new boyfriend although I don’t know if that’s a shoot boyfriend or storyline boyfriend playing her shoot boyfriend or what the fuck. Why is she even there? Who knows. Anyway, next up Douglas heads down to the ring and challenges anyone in the building to face him, so Goldberg answers and immediately destroys Shane to kill whatever heat he had generated from that attempted murder of Crowbar.

Meanwhile, Nash is supposedly showering after winning the title (even though the blurring clearly shows him wearing pants) but Booker attacks him and lays him out. “That’s like a scene out of Oz” notes Madden in a fairly clever double entendre.

Jeff Jarrett v. Big Vito

Yup, the Vito push continues. Vito gets a powerslam for two, but JJ slugs him down, so Vito sends him to the floor and they fight on the apron. Back in the ring, Jarrett puts the boots to him, but Vito fires back with a mafia kick and drops a leg for two. No more bald guys winning with legdrops in THIS promotion! Vito goes up with the flying elbow for two. Jarrett with an enzuigiri and he tries to finish, but Vito blocks it with a back suplex and goes up with a flying headbutt for two. He tries the DDT, but Jarrett reverses to the Stroke and pins him clean at 3:50. Best match of the show thus far. **1/2

Meanwhile, Jarrett goes to refresh his guitar supply from the back of his truck, but Mike Awesome pops out of the guitars and attacks him.

Elimination match: The Natural Born Thrillers v. The Filthy Animals

Konnan is actually in the match for once instead of doing commentary and cracking inside baseball jokes. The Animals work on Palumbo and then Reno, as Rey is cosplaying Nailz for some reason. Jindrak misses a quebrada and the newly named Disqo comes in and puts Jindrak in the corner. But then everyone comes in and does spots to clear out the ring and everyone but Sanders and Tigress are counted out at 4:00. So she hits Sanders with a low blow and the Face Full of Stuff, but Sanders no-sells it and finishes her with the 3.0 at 5:12. I should point out that they have millions of dollars of wrestlers under contract and TIGRESS is working multiple matches. *

Meanwhile, Big Vito runs into Russo and gives him the kiss of death. Much hotter when Katrina does it in Lucha Underground, but if it does something for you I’m not here to judge. I know Kat is all about more kissing in wrestling, although usually more specifically girls kissing, but you’re into some hot New York action between two besties, more power to you. Also Goldberg lays out Scott Steiner off-screen.

Vince Russo joins us again, now with Big Vito has his backup, and Goldberg answers the challenge, but Russo threatens to fire him if anything happens. We already established two weeks ago that Russo CAN’T fire him, which was the whole point of this feud. So Russo tells Vito to go after Goldberg, but Vito turns on Russo (which was clearly foreshadowed by Vito giving him the Kiss of Death in the last segment) and hauls him out of the ring, presumably to be buried in the desert. Oh well, to the next match.

The Great Muta v. Sting

They brawl on the floor and head up to the entrance, and then fight back to ringside again and then back up to the ramp, where the Dark Carafes cut through the screen in a dumb waste of money and Vampiro attacks Sting…again…to apparently continue their feud through another PPV. And then they fight to the scaffolding in front of the screen and the heels beat Sting down and it’s TO THE DESERT.

Meanwhile, Goldberg is going to bury Russo in the desert, but Bret Hart has somehow found them out there and he would also like to bury Russo in a hole in the desert for Montreal. But then Bret turns on Goldberg and it’s a SWERVE, which is like the fourth tease for the return of Bret Hart this year that never pays off with anything, ever.

Yeah I apologize for thinking this show was gonna be watchable after only getting through 15 minutes of it. It ended up just as stupid and nonsensical as anything else Russo ever did right after I typed that. And with a bonus of Kevin Nash winning another World title after spending the entire year using his TV time to whine about Scott Hall like a big baby!