havoc

War Of The Felines
Date: October 13, 2018
Location: Forrest Lodge, Sellersville, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Tim Taylor, Brad Demayo

This is Excellence Professional Wrestling and for reasons I don’t think I want to know, its shows have cat themes. I’m not sure what that is going to mean here but you never know what you are going to find in the indies. I know some of the names on this show and that might not be a bad thing, as this feels VERY Chikara style. Let’s get to it.

I have some issues with anything from the Russo era being at #1, but as always I love the effort put in by the guys who do these things.

So after reading your suggestions and making the Mello Yello move from 1993 WWF to 1993 WCW I offer a hopefully more readable review of one of WCW’s delicious bites from 1993.

Live from New Orleans, LA

Remember to check out my website at kbwrestlingreviews.com and head over to my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

Happy end of Halloween Blog Otters! I’m on my way to an organ performance at Brown university and figured I’d post this, else miss two QOTDs in a row!

What are you best and worst Halloween adventures? 


I have a few involving sailor Jerry’s, k2 , cops and German chicks but ill save it for a real keyboard

So I’ll post my costume. I’m the king of kings…. Personal band.https://mobile.twitter.com/MeekinOnMovies/status/396121149018349568/photo/1

Due to request, Caliber’s 2013 Tour of the Classics is making a stop at Halloween Havoc 1989.

Mike Rotunda vs. The Z-Man
Rotunda obviously spent his GAB money on a perm,
which I assume had something to do with him being Gabe Kaplan’s stunt double.
Doesn’t matter what a person does, there’s no way someone is getting over with
a name like Z-Man. I’m soon proven this as this match is absolute death. It’s
insanely slow, with constant stalling, and once the action gets going it’s
leap-frogs and wrist-locks. Thankfully, they do figure out what this match
needs to pick it up, SEVERAL submission spots. Leg-scissors, abdominal stretch,
sleepers, it’s all there, and it all sucks. Thankfully The Z-Man, a nickname
the ladies gave him, turns a flying cross body into a pin. 
The Z-Man pins the future boat captain at 13:23 | *

We get an interview with Bruno who was the
definition of a barrel chest.

This is Sir Oliver Humperdink. He was out on behalf of the SST & Samoan Savage. I’m including this picture because I started reviewing this PPV late at night, and fell asleep. For some reason, I have no idea why, my VLC player froze the file on this image. So, I literally woke up to this on the computer monitor about 2 feet from my face.

The Midnight Express & Steve Williams vs. The
Samoan Swat Team & Samoan Savage
I often wonder if wrestling organizations in other
countries are as xenophobic. Does a promotion in England do the Samoan savage
crap? Are there any American characters who are either Million Dollar Man-esque,
or Zeb Colter? I wonder if any promoters fucked with Samoan type wrestlers now
and again. Like, you have Fatu come into the office for his first meeting;

Promoter: We wanna go with something new! You’re
gonna be a Harvard educated-type Samoan. A man of culture and class, who’s here
to change stereotypes and ways of thinking
Fatu: Really?!
Promoter: Nah, just kidding. Here’s a raw fish,
get to eating. 

Enough with the fun, let’s get back to the match.
MX and Dr. Death are pretty great, that goes without saying. The Samoans are
death as far as any entertainment goes. Speaking of death, once the good Doctor
comes in, the place explodes. He really gets going, getting you whipped up for
the match, but then you realize it’s The Samoans on the other side, not The
Southern Boys or the 4 Horsemen. Eventually, because I say this with no
exaggeration or stretching of the truth, this match goes on for at least 4
hours, and finally Stan is pinned by The Samoan That Is Not Fatu, not to be
confused with The Harris Brother That Sid Did Not Pin. 
Stan runs into Corny and is pinned at 18:16 | **
[all of these stars are for Dr. D and MX]

We get an interview with Terry Funk in which he
states that tonight a new dance will sweep Philly, the 10,000 Watt Electric
Boogie featuring Ric Flair and Sting. I for one am looking forward to this
match, simply to see how Funk acts when he gets electrocuted. 

Tommy Rich vs. The Cuban Assassin
It’s great how Ross keeps talking up Rich, and how
he’s “the comeback man of 1989” as the crowd screams “TOMMY RICH
SUCKS!” There is nothing to note of this match, other than the crowd
shitting all over it. Man, this PPV better get going, because so far it’s
God-awful. Honestly, this picked up a little near the end, and that’s all I
have to say about it. I can’t believe Rich won with a Lou Thez Press in 1989. 
Cuban Assassin eats a pin after getting hit with a
finisher that wouldn’t get over in 1089 A.D. let alone 1989 at 8:26 | *1/2

 FREEBIRDS! Man, they were DYING to make those
Terminator shades happen. Let us also not forget the waist high leather
jackets. 

The Freebirds [C] vs. Dynamic Dudes – WCW Tag-Team
Championship
The Freebirds do have a great move where Hayes
will run over to Garvin after getting roughed up and have him adjust his hair.
I’ll give it to the Dudes, they’ve got some decent double-team moves. The
crowd, because it’s the birthplace of smark, is chanting like crazy for the
Freebirds. So much so that Garvin and Hayes get into it. The crowd is so sick
of the Dudes’ pathetic babyface pandering that they blow the roof off with a
cheer when Hayes cheapshots Johnny. Near the end, The Dudes look to be
finishing off the Birds, drawing absolute heel heat. They go for the Wipeout [a
double sling-shot back-drop] on Garvin, Hayes holds Ace’s foot, allowing Garvin
to turn into a pin and retain the titles, much to the delight of the crowd.
Now, I’ll admit, I was dreading this, but this match absolutely won me over.
The crowd laid a great foundation for the match, proving it’s always awesome
when people will not just eat the white bread like they’re told. I also have to
give due to the Dynamic ones, as their double team moves and energy helped them
pull their own weight. Same goes for The Freebirds, as they were ridiculous,
and absolutely soaking up the adulation. Good stuff. 
Garvin pins Douglas after a botched Wipeout at
11:28 | ***1/2

Interview with The Steiners. It’s so weird seeing
the voice, and sheer idiocy of Big Poppa Pump coming out of this dumb looking
dude with a mullet. 

Doom w/ Woman vs. The Steiners
You know, I often hear about how broken down Scott
was once he hit the BPP stage of his career, however it wasn’t until I started
watching old NWA stuff that I saw it for myself. Literally everything he does
is faster, from simple things like walking and punching, to leaps off the top
rope and Frankensteiners. Definitely one of the hardest hitting matches I’ve
seen, as the Steiners are typical to their rep, but Simmons and Reed are giving
as good as they get. Rick and Scott are controlling at first until Doom starts
gloriously pulling out every cheap heel tactic they can. They get Scott in
their corner and beat the hell out of him with numerous double-team moves, my
favorite of which being what appeared to be a double-suplex but they end up
just throwing Scott to the ground once he’s up in the air. Eventually Scott
nabs the hot tag, but Woman places an international object in the mask of Reed,
allowing him to deliver a super-head butt on Rick and earn the victory. Of
course, the announcers don’t call in to question the absolutely inane action of
putting something like a roll of quarters in your mask as opposed to just your
hand, but whatever gets the job done, I suppose. It’s a pretty good match
that’s made on the simple fact of how hard-hitting it is. 
Reed head-butts Rick for the pin at 15:26 | ***1/4

Brian Pillman vs. Lex Luger – US Heavyweight
Championship
The match started off with Brian doing whatever he
could to get the edge on Luger, but Lex just kept cutting him off at the knees.
Eventually, Pillman is able to work Luger’s left arm in hopes of disabling the
Torture Rack. All this does is piss Lex off, as he eventually beats the hell
out of Pillman with clotheslines to the back of the head and powerslams. This
is the role that Luger should play always, whoever wanted to see him as a face
is out of their mind. Or digs crap. Philly seems to really love themselves some
Lex, and we even see him jawing with Hat Guy from ECW. Luger catches Pillman
with a Stun Gun, and that’s enough to put him down. I too am stunned at Luger
being able to have another good match that wasn’t with Flair. I don’t think
it’s anything worth seeking out, but it definitely helps elevate the PPV, and
at the time made Pillman look like a star. 
Pillman eats a Stun Gun and a pin at 16:48 | ***1/4

Skyscrapers vs. Road Warriors
Well, here’s the match that’ll give you your
money’s worth, workrate wise. The fact that Sid is still in a tag-team after
what I saw at the GAB 89 is amazing. The match is just about what you’d expect,
a lot of no selling, a lot of kicking and punching that help carry a giant
reminder that the LOD are not the greatest tag-team of all time. Teddy Long is
mobbing around with a giant gold key, leaving me to wonder if he melted down
the crown the Skyscrappers won at GAB. He probably opted for the key because
carrying around the crown looked stupid. Teddy tosses the key in and we get
ourselves a DQ. 
The Skyscrapers are DQ’ed at 11:39 | *1/2

Interview with Sting and Ric Flair. Sting tells us
it’s Halloween, and it’s full of havoc. Oh…oh, I see what he did there. 

Ric Flair & Sting vs. Terry Funk & The
Great Muta – w/ special guest ref Bruno Sammartino – Thunderdome Match
The match can only end when either Gary Hart
representing Muta & Funk or Ole representing Sting & Flair throw in the
towel for one of their guys. The Thunderdome cage is decorated with Halloween
garb that of course catches fire before the match starts. Once it does start,
it’s great, with everyone giving their all, and enjoying the hell out of
themselves. It’s almost as tough a brawl as the Flair/Funk match from the Bash,
but I feel like the cage is actually hindering the match. Instead of keeping it
in the ring, the guys have to occasionally work the cage, and it really
disrupts the flow. However, Flair does swing from a rope like Tarzan, so that
helps. However, if they’d just kept this as a basic tag match, they could have
had a great main event. Unfortunately, all this crap with the stupid
electrified cage, and throwing in the towel just ruined it. Completely killing
the flow, and turning the match into a disjointed mess of people randomly going
here and there and doing whatever, like touching the top of the cage despite
the fact we’re told it’s got 10,000 watts running through it. The second half
wouldn’t have been so bad had it not been built on the promise of the great
first half. Ole throws in Gary’s towel, and we have our winners. 
Towel is thrown in for Funk & Muta at 21:55 |
***1/4

Showcase Showdown: 
On the heels of GAB, as well as the other great
stuff I’ve been hearing about 1989 NWA, I really expected this one to be solid
as well. Although I’ve certainly seen a hell of a lot worse, there wasn’t
anything mind blowing here. Had more than one match been at least ***1/2, I
could probably give this a recko, but that isn’t the case. Dusty’s need to have
a gimmicked main event soured the final match on a card that was built on a
foundation that could be described as “OK” at best. I’d say look for
the Freebirds vs. Dynamic Dudes match on YouTube, and sure, check out the main
event while you’re at it, because the first half is some great stuff. This show
is the Second Showchase that’s not so bad, but still isn’t the first one that
had jet-skis and the Royal Rumble pinball machine.

As always much respect to my editor, Steven Ferrari. I met him when I needed to buy a new caravan for a boxer I was managing, and at the time he was living with a group of Gypsies. Dags? Oh yeah, I like “dags”.

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Halloween Havoc – October 25th, 1998
MGM Grand Garden Arena
10,663 in attendance
Buyrate was 0.78. Year prior was 1.17, headlined by Hogan v Piper, Age in the Cage.

You know, it’s probably a blessing that Havoc didn’t do mega-numbers, due to the fact that it went a half & hour longer than what they told the cable-companies. So millions of screens went black and WCW had to reimburse all of those people, while showing the main event for free on Nitro.

One thing I can say right
away, is the set is looks awesome. One of the best I’ve seen.

Nitro Girls do their Nitro Girl thing. Shawn’s
wife is rather attractive, although too tall for my tastes. I always thought
Fyre was the best looking, personally.

We start off the PPV with an interview. Alrighty.
Rick Steiner shows up and informs us he’s the hound, in the pound, and he’s
gonna get down. Buff comes out wearing one of those driver-caps, but
wearing it backwards like people did in the 90’s. Those hats are cool, but when
worn backward, man, they look SO stupid. Especially HHH’s ‘Harley
Davidson’ one. Buff is also wearing FuBu. Buff is also timeless. Buff is also
going to be in Rick’s corner, and would never, EVER turn on him. EVER.
That’s spelled E-V-E-R.

Raven vs. Chris Jericho [C] – WCW Television
Championship

Huh, Tony just called Jericho’s cover the “arrogant
cover.” I thought that was solely a CAW reference. Speaking of CAW, this is
easily my favorite Raven look, and I really wish he would have kept it.
He really started looking weird as time moved on. They made Jericho look tough
as all get out in this match. I mean, he kicks out of a catapult into
the turnbuckle bolt followed by a clothesline. Then he kicks out of Raven’s
Evenflow. It’s too bad this didn’t get longer, because this was
hard-hitting, fast, and extremely close. Great opener. Plus, we get the irony
of Jericho almost losing to the Evenflow DDT, while his entrance music
is a rip off of Pearl Jam’s Evenflow.
Raven taps out to the Liontamer at 7:49 | ****

You know, something I miss is the match re-caps
that WCW would do, where they show the high-lights, and even the entrance of
the winner. 

Hogan comes out for an interview in an nWo Nitro
shirt. I imagine after the rating that show had, there were a lot of homeless
folk around Atlanta that became nWo-ites. You know, the
Bischoff/Hollywood Hogan relationship was awesome. Punk and Heyman need to act
like that. We get a recap of Hogan beating up Horace, reminding me how
stupid it was that Stevie Ray was in the nWo, and that Stevie Ray was one of
those people who felt you could eat whatever you want while on anabolics.
In the crowd, I see a Kenny’s Krib Sting. Anyone else remember Kenny’s Krib?
Afterward, Hogan says he’s gonna rip out Warrior’s heart, and then bury
it along with his soul in a toxic waste dump. That sounds very specific, and
painful.
 

Disco Inferno vs. Juventud Guerrera
You know, props to Disco for getting over. Do you
know how disheartening it must have been to get your big break, and then be
told they want you to be the wrestling version of John Travolta from “Saturday
Night Fever”? You’d be better off being the wrestling version of John
Travolta from “Urban Cowboy.” Disco outsmarts Juvi, and points to his head,
letting us know he’s SMART. Disco gives us a little Macarena action,
reminding me of the Macarena contests my middle school would hold at lunch. Not
a bad match, really. They just didn’t click very well.

Disco hits a jumping piledriver on Juvi for the
pin at 9:39 | **1/2

Scott Steiner comes out. He tells us that Las
Vegas is the city that never sleeps, which is fine for him, because he’s been
up for three days and 30 nights. I have to admit, that’s a neat trick. 

Disco Inferno vs. Kidman [C] – Crusierweight
Championship

Alright, why couldn’t Disco just wait in the ring until
Kidman came out? It would have been rather impressive if he wins the strap. Man
alive, if there’s one guy who
looks nothing like he did, it’s Kidman. And Barry Windham. Disco needs to work
on his trash talk. Screaming things at Kidman such as “turn down
the music” and “pip-squeak” just aren’t working. He tries to
powerbomb Kidman, and we all know what that leads to. Decent bout. 

Kidman hits the Shooting Star for the pin at 10:49
| ***

Scott Steiner & The Giant [C] vs. Rick Steiner
& Buff Bagwell – WCW Tag-Team Championships
Face Buff is No-Buys Buff. I want the top-hat.
Giant is in first, and he works Rick over. It’s great, because he goes to tag
Steiner in, and Steiner tells the Giant ‘one more! one more! break him!’
then when Rick is toast, Scott comes in. It’s great heel stuff, because he’s
completely avoiding one-on-one, and being
a total ass. Brilliance. Tag to Buff, and turn
from Buff. Thankfully that was fast. He’s quickly back into heel Buff mode,
further confirming my belief to be proud that I cheered for him in
Tacoma, even if this was his THIRD heel turn to the nWo. Giant misses a drop
kick, nailing Scott, giving Rick his opening. 

Bulldog to Scott gives Rick the pin, the titles,
and singles match with his brother at 8:24 |  **

Scott Steiner walks away, seemingly reneging on
his original deal! That no good-nik. So, Rick follows after him and pulls him
into the ring. 

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner
Some suplexes here and there before a very bizarre
sequence; Some guy in a suit and a Bill Clinton mask jumps the rail, knocks out
a few dudes, takes the slap-jack from Stevie Ray, then runs into the
ring and knocks out Rick as well as the ref. He unmasks to reveal Buff Bagwell.
Seriously, what the hell? We saw
Buff earlier, so why on Earth did he need to disguise himself? And WHY did he
need to be Bill Clinton? Was the Rick James mask lost? Then, if that wasn’t odd
enough, he proceeds to drag the ref around and use his hand to make 3 counts.
Rick makes the comeback, puts down Scott with the Bulldog. His theme music is a
pretty decent rip-off of “Welcome To The Jungle,” I might I add. Despite
the weirdness, it was still entertaining. 
Rick hits Scott with the Bulldog for the win at
5:10 | *** [match wasn’t much, but I’m giving the whole ordeal 3 stars]

Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash

Scott comes out apparently drunk. Once Nash hits
the ring, though, he throws the drink he’s been carrying into Kevin’s face and
reveals he’s not drunk! Joke’s on you, Kevin, he’s only in a soma coma.
Unfortunately, Hall is clearly on his way to that ESPN documentary at this
point, and Nash is rich, so this match doesn’t even come close to their
matches in the WWE. The entire match is punch-punch-knee-knee-punch-punch. There was a
decent amount of drama, but for their history and such, this needed to
be mid-80’s NWA violent. 

Nash walks out of the match after giving Hall two
Jack-knife powerbombs at 14:19 | **

Bret Hart [C] vs. Sting – US Championship

Man, Bret’s WCW music is absolutely terrible. This
was when Sting had the goatee, so he looked like a character from Dick Tracy.
He keeps doing this thing where he stomps Bret’s hands, and that’s
something a heel should add to his moveset, because it’s fantastically cheap.
Man, Bret is actually a pretty decent heel. He’s doing all sorts of
awesome bad-guy stuff in this match, from faking injury, to using international
objects and low blows. At one point, Bret has just dropped Sting
neck-first on the guard-rail, but a female fan has all the words of
encouragement for him, letting Stinger know “GET UP! YOU’RE SO SEXY!”.
It works. I email Mickie James x-rated drawings I do in Microsoft Paint all the
time and she’s always kicking ass. So, you know. Soon, the ref is
knocked out and these two just don’t give a shit. Running over the ref,
suplexing each other on top of him, it’s good stuff. Soon, Stinger does the
splash, but knocks himself out on the ringpost, resulting in him hanging
over the ropes. Bret then commits murder by BASHING Sting in the head with the
baseball bat repeatedly. Pretty awesome, actually, as it was done just
right, not with a ball-peen hammer, and it didn’t go on for 40 minutes. I
remember this match being really bad, but on second viewing, it’s not
bad at all, just didn’t live up to the hype. Honestly though, Bret as a heel is
awesome, and I actually want to see the rematch between these two.
Bret slaps Sting in the Sharpshooter, and the ref
drops his hand 3 times to give Bret the win at 15:03 | ***1/4

Hollywood Hogan vs. Warrior – The Match WCW Paid
$1 Million For

We get a shot of a tasteful sign that says
“Bischoff is…A] retarded B] broke C] a gimp D] All of the Above.”
Well, the sign gives away the answer, as D is circled with heavy
enthusiasm. I will say, Warrior’s music is actually pretty bad-ass, and one has
to wonder if Mac got his fascination with dusters from Warrior. I’m inclined
to believe that he did. Seriously, this match honest to God looks like two guys
are out there having their first match ever, not two guys who have a combined
almost 30 years of experience. Haha, the log roll. This in no way can be
considered one of the worst matches of all time, because it’s damn
entertaining, especially with Hogan throwing unlit flash paper at the
Warrior. At least he took full credit for the stupid fireball ordeal. Scarier
than burning oneself is leaving these two to call an audible mid-match. I’m
shocked it didn’t involve Truckasourus. Now they’re going to cover Warrior in
lighter fluid, as we’re to REALLY believe that they’re going to burn him alive
in front of people. If I were Warrior, there’s absolutely NO WAY I’d trust
Hogan to NOT burn me alive. I’d be afraid after he dumped all the fluid on me
that he’d wonder where the lighter was, so he could secure it, and then
use the lighter in his hand to add extra light in aid of his search of the
lighter that he’s sure is around my body somewhere.

Horace Hogan hits Warrior with a chair to give
Hogan the pin at 14:18 | * [but really, if we’re talking how entertaining it is
in its awfulness, then we’re talking ****]

DDP vs. Goldberg [C] – WCW Championship
It’s truly stunning that they screwed up
Goldberg’s run. I mean, it’d be so much harder to screw it up, than to not.
This match is fantastic from the get go, which is all credit to DDP. I will
give props to Goldberg though for doing the backflip when Dallas tried to sweep
his legs out from underneath him. I know I may get some flack for over-rating,
but anyone who thinks this isn’t at least ***1/2 stars is crazy. The
beginning is great with DDP refusing to be afraid, and doing everything he can
to wear Goldberg down. Great moment with the missed Spear and Goldberg
being weak from then on. DDP actually had Bill with the Diamond Cutter, but
just couldn’t cover in time. Again, great match. They also should have
had a rematch where DDP beats him finally. He’s easily the closest anyone has
come at this point, and the match was awesome. DDP beating Goldberg
would have been believable, and told a great story. Oh well. Nash winning ended
up just fine.
Goldberg with the Jackhammer at 10:28 | ****1/4

Showcase Showdown: You’ve got two matches that
reach 4 stars, one of the greatest train-wrecks in wrestling history, and a
solid under card. It’s a fun show that gets a bad-rap, simply because of
Hogan/Warrior, I believe, even though it’s one of the most entertaining things
on the card. If you don’t feel like watching the whole show, then just snag
Jericho/Raven, and DDP/Goldberg. However, if you’ve never seen Warrior/Hogan
II, then by all means you need to see that too. 
3 and a half head-butts out of 5.

Thanks as always to my editor, Steve Ferarri. We were both in the Vietnam War, where we both ended up dead, but then were brought back to life under a secret program called The Universal Soldiers. 

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The SK Rant for WCW Halloween Havoc 2000 (Let’s wrap up this countdown with one of the low points of WCW’s lowest point.) – I’m always accused of being biased, so I’m going to add one positive thing to every match so you can’t say that I didn’t find any. – Live from Lost Wages, NV – Your hosts are Tony, Stevie & Mark. How bad is it when Stevie Ray has leapfrogged both Mike Tenay and Scott Hudson into the regular PPV spot? – Opening match, WCW World tag titles: Mark Jindrak & Sean O’ Hare v. Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman v. The Boogie Knights. I really wish the champs would have their names on their boots or something, because I still can’t tell the difference. (Thankfully Sean would at least distinguish himself enough in WWE that today I could tell the difference were I stupid enough to want to watch this show again.)  Kidman & Wright double-team Jindrak to start, but Wright turns on Kidman. O’Hare gets the same treatment. Kidman shoulderblocks Disqo for two. (Oh yeah, this was when Disco changed his name to Disqo because of Cisqo.  Fun fact:  I have no fucking idea who Cisqo is because I didn’t listen to any kind of top 40 radio or music shows between the late 90s and a few years ago.  It constantly amazes my wife when I have these giant pop culture blind spots of stuff that she assumes everyone shares knowledge about.  But I digress.)   Wright dropkicks Jindrak for two. He gives Jindrak what appears to be a high knee, but Jindrak goes down about two seconds before the move connects. Wright uses the Edge & Christian assisted suplex on Jindrak for two. Man, Wright is outworking everyone else in the match by 100% here. O’Hare comes in and cleans house on the smaller guys, making them look like jobbers. How ironic. The champs hiptoss Kidman into the ring, and the Boogie Knights double-team Rey Rey as the pointless highspots start. They fire off a bunch of them until Sean O’Hare finishes Disqo with the Seanton bomb at 10:05 to retain the titles. This was what it was. **1/2 Positive thing: The right team won. – Hardcore title match: Reno v. A-Wall. I haven’t watched Nitro or Thunder in months so I’m totally lost as to the point here, but I vaguely recall the whole deal with Reno winning the title on a reversed decision a few weeks ago. The Idiots stress that this is OLD SCHOOL HARDCORE, BABY, as those “Start in the back and fight to the ring” rules have gone the way of Tony Schiavone’s self-respect. (I love the idea of “old school hardcore”, given that the entire style they’re ripping off originated about two years before this show took place.  Maybe 5 if you’re counting ECW, but who does?)  Rhetorical question: When was the last time a hardcore match in WCW was actually fought under those rules, because I haven’t seen one of them since about July? Reno puts Wall through a table 10 seconds in to just completely cheapen the gimmick. Do the people booking these matches have ANY idea how to effectively use things like tables? Notice how the WWF makes the fans chant for them for 10 minutes before one gets pulled out? There’s a reason. It’s called DRAMATIC TENSION. We get to hear the term “old school hardcore” about 14 times. Fight to the rampway and into the back, which was supposed to be the kind of thing that we didn’t want to see anymore and thus was eliminated. My head hurts. Wall throws one of those imitation plastic monitors that you see in IKEA displays at Reno, and luckily he ducks to avoid the serious injury that hollow plastic props can cause. Hmm, there’s a picture on the screen, but it’s not plugged in? WCW: Swedish for “crap”. (Oddly enough, IKEA now uses real TVs in their displays, or least they do at the Edmonton store when I’m lucky enough to get out there and spend ridiculous amounts of money on stuff I don’t need.  Maybe it’s a good thing Saskatoon isn’t big enough to ever get an IKEA.)  Back to the ring, more tables. Yay, more tables, that’ll make them their 60 million dollars back. Reno gets his neckbreaker thing on a table for the pin at 10:45. What exactly is that move supposed to be doing to cause damage? Basically he’s just turning him over. In fact, the brunt of the blow is on Reno, because he’s the one landing on his back and taking the weight of Wall on him. (And yet 80 zillion indy guys now use that move, to the extent that “Roll the Dice” has basically become the generic name for the move.  I think that Crossroads might become the new de facto standard name with time, though.)  Oh, sorry, I’m being biased again, feel free to write me and complain about the Rock Bottom or the KICK WHAM STUNNER, because lord knows I care about each and every piece of mail I get from people defending this stuff. ½* An MIA-NBT showdown follows. Positive thing: The Wall didn’t cause serious injury to himself or his opponent.  (Sadly, the serious injury would come just three years later for the Wall, as in death.)  – Impromptu match: Chuck Palumbo & Shawn Stasiak v. Chavo Guerrero & Lash LeRoux. Chavo & Lash dominate Stasiak to start as Madden stresses that THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM between Stasiak & Palumbo while the other two argue that there is. Note to retarded bookers writing this stuff: It’s the year 2000. Just thought I’d let you know. Lash dominates Palumbo, but Chavo gets dumped. Palumbo & Stasiak argue and Stasiak gets rolled up for two, just in case the “Blind Deaf & Dumb Society of America” happened to be in the audience tonight watching and wasn’t sure what the storyline was.  (If they were today, Alberto Del Rio would probably tear up their braille signs and laugh at them, and then they’d sue WWE and win.)  He comes back with a powerbomb for two. Chavito plays trooper-in-peril, but reverses a press slam and gets the hot tag to Lash. He gets nailed and exchanges sleepers with Chuck Palumbo. When was the last time ANYONE used a sleeper in the WWF (not named “X-Pac”)? (Dolph is bringing it back, baby!  And HHH did shortly after this, too.)  You know why? Because it’s a dead move and fans instinctively get bored when it’s used. So of course we ended up seeing three or four of them tonight. Hot tag Chavo, and heel miscommunication allows Chavo to hit the DDT on Stasiak for the pin at 9:22. If they think splitting up Palumbo & Stasiak is gonna help one bit, more power to ‘em, but a little subtlety goes a long way in wrestling and they’d do well to remember it. Match was pretty boring. *1/4 Positive thing: Madden brought “Chavito” into formal use. – Shane Douglas & Torrie v. Konnan & Tygress. Torrie is dressed as Wonder Woman. Konnan, who got severely beat down in the opening match and had to be helped out by EMTs, looks remarkably better as he hits the ring a minute in to save us from seeing any more of Torrie v. Tygress. He and Tygress double-team Douglas, and you immediately know that you’re watching a WCW PPV because Douglas has the World’s Biggest Brace and a double-wrap on his left arm, so Konnan and Tygress work on the good arm. (Well because then both arms are useless, maybe?) Reverse psychology, maybe? Torrie comes in and does the Baywatch Lifeguard Run in gloriously bouncy slow motion at Tygress in the corner, but runs into a foot. I don’t know how one can possibly screw up that spot, but they managed. (Lifting the foot in the corner is a tough gig.  Just ask Kevin Nash.)  Tygress plays T&A-in-peril. Ah, you might ask: If Konnan was so injured that they had to get a non-wrestler to do the brunt of the work, why not just sub him out and use someone else? Answer: Because then all the irate fans who paid to see this match would demand a refund. Hot tag Konnan, and Katie bar the yadda yadda yadda. Everyone stands around waiting for a cue to go home in a charming spot that makes me love WCW THAT MUCH MORE until Torrie does a sort of Franchiser on Konnan that manages to make the move even MORE useless than when Shane does it. I think Konnan and Torrie had to pause for a couple of seconds to figure out who was actually supposed to be selling the move. Konnan MIRACULOUSLY kicks out from that move and hits the X-Factor on Douglas at 8:35 for the pin. See, now I personally wouldn’t have given this anything NEAR 10 minutes with two injured guys and two chicks in there, but everyone says I’m biased so I guess it was okay. -**1/2 Positive thing: Torrie running. – DNA match: David Flair v. Buff Bagwell. I still don’t know what “DNA rules” are supposed to be. Flair brings some beakers in a baggie to at least make an effort to sell the angle. I’d pull up the quote from Vince Russo last month about how this angle would have “swerve after swerve” and shock the world, but really it’s like pulling up old quotes of Eric Bischoff from 1997 going on internet chats and talking about how boring the ratings wars were at the time. The horse is dead, why lay in anymore shots? Buff pounds on Flair and yawns a lot, treating the match like a joke. HE’S SHOOTING, BROTHER! What’s really sad here is that David doesn’t even realize that he’s being made into the joke, as he goes through his usual crazy selling and generally tries really hard with what he’s being given. It’s always a tragedy when someone with as little talent as David is out there giving it his all and someone who used have as much as Buff did is out there acting like the match is beneath him. It might be, but it’s his job to convince the fans otherwise. They do something resembling brawling on the floor, and David gets hit with a chair and bleeds, giving Bagwell the win at 5:42. Apparently it was a first blood match. That’s one of those details you want to tell people, guys. Especially the wrestlers, because Bagwell hits the Blockbuster and tries for the pin before the ref informs him that he’s already the winner. (That’s WCW for you.)  Whew, that’s a relief, if David had been booked to win then Buff might have quit and we’d be robbed of ever seeing him again, and god knows the world isn’t ready for life without Buff. -***, thus showing the god-given talent and drawing power that Buff Bagwell brings to the table every time out. Positive thing: Neither Judy Bagwell nor Miss Hancock was involved in any way. – Somebody’s grandfather (in a Yankees jersey) walks in and turns on Buff after the match, looking remarkably like Lex Luger if he was a 40-year old has been with no career direction. Oh, wait… – Kickboxing match: Mike Sanders v. The Cat. Cat squashes Sanders for the three scheduled two-minute rounds, but at the end of the third one Shane Douglas KO’s Cat with a chain. Cat is saved by the bell (I think?), but brawls with Douglas and gets counted out (??) after the time limit expires (???) to lose the commisionership to Mike Sanders (????). I think we need one of those Bruce Mitchell “Explain the Booking” contests to take care of this one. –**** Positive thing: I liked Mike Sanders’ shirt. – Mike Awesome v. Vampiro. You know, I was pretty much hoping that this one would end the negative-star run, but then I was also hoping that Buff would no-show and get fired tonight, so I guess I’m just overly optimistic. Vamp wants the #1 contendership in return for all the people he’s beaten in his WCW career. Vamp bails and Awesome hits a tope con hilo, although only in a loose sense of the word “hits”. Brawl into the crowd for lack of anything good to do. That goes on for a bit, until Awesome gets jumped by an energetic fan and stops to pound him into oblivion before going back to hitting Vampiro with worked punches two seconds later.  (Could I have timed this repost ANY BETTER?!) Don’t forget to stomp, guys. Back to the ring for a duelling chairs spot that comes out of nowhere and goes the same place. Vamp hits a Super-Frankensteiner and nearly breaks Awesome’s neck in the process. He follows with a top rope something that looked like a cross between a cannonball and a Thesz Press, but somehow was worse than both. Awesome bails, but Vampiro comes back with a Michinoku Driver. Hey, they hit a spot! Congratulations, remind me to buy a card to commemorate the occasion. Vampiro stops to go table shopping, but none is evident. So instead of WRESTLING, he wastes another minute checking under every side of the ring. They head outside and Awesome powerbombs him on the floor for two, as this has suddenly become a falls-count-anywhere match. Funny, I didn’t think it was Vancouver. Back in, a top rope Awesomebomb finishes at 9:50, returning the favor by nearly breaking Vampiro’s neck. I don’t know why people were getting excited about seeing this one. -*1/2 Reason #459 why WCW is losing 60 million dollars: Awesome does this incredible-looking deadly finisher, the announcers sell it like Vampiro is a corpse, and what music is playing the background? Awesome’s cheesy 70s elevator music. Positive thing: Mike’s hair remained in pristine condition even after the match. – Canadian title: Lance Storm & Jim Duggan v. General Rection. Please, Duggan, bring us above DUD! Slugfest between Rection and Duggan to start. Storm goes next and runs into a foot. He comes back with an atomic drop. Rection dumps him but gets dumped in turn. Man, this is thrilling action. Duggan chokes him. Long beatdown follows. Storm provides the second sleeper spot on the night, then heel miscommunication cues the comeback for Rection. Powerslam gets two. The ref (Scott Armstrong, the second-best worker in the match) gets bumped and is out cold. No wonder the Armstrongs jobbed all the time. Duggan piledriver, no ref. Elix Skipper runs in but gets held off by Major Gunns. Is that storyline STILL going on? Didn’t everyone stop caring about it two months ago, including the bookers? Rection does something that looks kinda like a russian legsweep to Duggan, and finishes with a moonsault that misses by six inches to capture the Canadian title and thus bury Lance Storm further. I guess retarded WCW logic says that because Duggan jobbed, Lance Storm keeps his heat for a rematch with General Rection. Not that anyone wants to see Storm v. Rection again to begin with. Reason #1949 why WCW is losing upwards of 60 million dollars: The second-highest champion in the promotion is named “Hugh G. Rection”. DUD Positive thing: Zero stars is still better than less-than-zero stars. – Jeff Jarrett v. Sting. Tony talks about how the first Halloween Havoc was in 1989 and how 11 years later Sting is still here. Open mouth, insert foot. (I don’t get it.)  Brawl to start, then Sting misses a Stinger splash and then dumps Jarrett. That’s about the extent of the good part of the match, as a bogus Sting, dressed in 80s garb, comes out to taunt Sting. Sting takes him out. Sting & Jarrett brawl into the crowd, where finds “Early 90s Sgt. Pepper Sting”, complete with hot pink tights and bad makeup job. No ducktail, though? That’s pretty sloppy. He beats up that one, too. I’d call the match incredibly retarded right now, but I’m afraid it might get worse. Back in, Jarrett & Sting stall until Wolfpac Sting joins us and gets beat up. For those people who wonder what exactly we recappers mean when we talk about “masturbatory insider booking” that goes over the heads of 99.9% of the audience and only serves to amuse the bookers, this is the match you wanna look at. Jarrett controls with some basic stuff as we’re all just waiting for Sting #4. And indeed he soon pops out of the ring and drags Sting under, only to get beat up. I think that one was played by Steve Keirn. Or maybe Ray Licachelli. The lights go out and a fifth Sting rappels from the rafters to attack. PLEASE don’t tell me that they were just waiting for Bret Hart to retire so they could start doing that again on a regular basis. This Sting is bald, by the way, thus shattering the finely crafted illusion of authenticity that they had been shooting for all match long. Sting puts him through a table as Sting #4 (for those keeping track) returns to hit Sting with the guitar and give Jarrett the pin at 14:38. WCW’s never-ending quest to make Jeff Jarrett a top heel continues. And with booking like this, would YOU bet against them? -*** Positive thing: Copyright issues prevent them from doing the same gimmick with Jarrett’s old personas. For the moment. – I mean, CHRIST, how hard is it to book a Jarrett v. Sting match? You put them out there, say “Have a good match” and decide that one goes over the other. My working theory for this show so far is that Vince Russo snapped, killed all the other bookers, and wrote the show while high on amphetamines and coffee with the help of his imaginary friend “Mortimer the Space Cowboy” in one last attempt to destroy the promotion before he’s officially fired. However, as noble a goal as that may be, there’s just no excuse for ever mentioning Kung-Fu Action Lobster Sting again. – WCW World title: Booker T v. Scott Steiner. Dear god, Crush & Adam Bomb are main-eventing tonight? Hammerlock sequence to start. Steiner bails, but changes his mind and comes back to pound away on Booker. Brawl outside and into the crowd, which Steiner dominates with ease. Back in, Steiner elbowdrop gets two. Booker escapes a surfboard, but runs into a lariat. Steiner gets a top rope fallaway slam (right onto the section of ring torn apart by the previous match when Sting #4 popped through it) and poses, not even bothering to cover him. Sure, bury your World champion, why not? Who needs offense, anyway? Booker comes back but Steiner lariats him again, out of the ring. Back in, Steiner lays in the boots. Booker comes back with a missile dropkick (yah! Scott finally sells a move!) but that offensive flurry doesn’t last long for Booker as Steiner grabs his trusty foam lead pipe and takes out Booker and several refs for a DQ at 13:27. Nothing earns the trust and support of a dwindling fanbase more than a DQ in a title match that they spent $30 to see. * Positive thing: There was an impressive shot of Medasya’s ass while Steiner was making his entrance. – Kroni>| v. Goldberg. We’re got MAYBE 5 minutes of total airtime left here. And indeed it’s 1998 all over again as Goldberg dispatches both with the usual at 3:42. DUD Positive thing: The show is over. The Bottom Line: Hands down, worst PPV of the year to date. No competition, no likely challengers on the horizon unless XPW suddenly gets a better TV deal. What was expected to be decent was overbooked into insanely bad, and what wasn’t supposed to be good, wasn’t. Disqo’s lame duck gimmick sums up the current booking very well: Lame duck. Or, if the WWF deal doesn’t go through, dead duck. (Well, the WWF deal did go through, and they still ended up a dead duck anyway.)  Thumbs WAY down.

The Netcop Rant for Halloween Havoc 1999 (Speaking of awesome scary stuff, BATMAN #13 this week.  Holy SHIT Scott Snyder has made Joker one terrifying son of a bitch again. I bow to his comic writing greatness.) Warning: The following rant contains sarcasm of a damaging nature and may expose the hypocrisy of WCW shills. Readers with WCW leanings may wish to ask their parents before having the Vince Russo era exposed for the farce that it is.  (I called that one early and often.)  Live from Las Vegas, NV, which seems fitting for the first Russo show, somehow. Your hosts are Tony and Bobby, sitting at ringside instead of in the back. Opening match, Cruiserweight title: Disco Inferno v. Lash LeRoux. DI gets a quick start to control. Lash comes back with some basic stuff and they brawl out of the ring. Back in and Lash hits a sloppy rana from the top for two. Back-and-forth with more bush league stuff for a bit. Disco gets the swinging neckbreaker for two, and the jumping piledriver also gets two. I miss the Macarena Driver, personally. (Is WWE gonna have people doing a Gangnam Style thing soon?  Because I’ve never even seen the original video and even I’m tired of hearing about it.)  Lash hits a sloppy pumphandle powerbomb for two. Whiplash, but Disco escapes and hits the Chartbuster for the pin. This was indyish as you can get, but probably the best that could have been expected. **  (Eh, Lash always tried hard, but he was always way out of his league.)  Earlier in the day, Benoit and Malenko tell Saturn & Douglas to shove the Revolution up their ass. “Ass” total so far: 1. I smell a screwjob to mess up Benoit’s career again. PLEASE prove me wrong, WCW. WCW World tag title: The First Family v. Harlem Heat v. Kidman & Konnan. They had announced that Rey Rey (which is apparently his new official name) was injured, and so the Filthy Animals were stripped of the titles. Kidman and K-Dong still wear the belts to the ring, acting like babyfaces, even though the storyline has them as heels. (That whole sentence sums up Russo in a nutshell.)  Just non-stop weapons shots here, none of them very good. The Heat & Knobbs fight backstage, ala RAW. Stevie Ray hits Knobbs with a mummy and gets the pin there, while in the ring (which the camera totally misses) Kidman pins Hugh Morrus a couple of minutes later as the Heat comes back out (there was two referees). They act all controversial and stuff, but the Heat’s pinfall clearly came well before the Animals’ did. Heat gets the titles for the 10th time. This was utter junk. 1/2* Sports Entertainment Segment: DDP & Kimberly are out to insult the crowd. Crowd chants “You suck” and DDP replies “I can’t suck, I’m not from Vegas”. More spanking innuendoes stemming from Nitro result, plus some masturbation innuendoes towards Flair, all of which leads to DDP issuing a challenge for a strap match tonight. Hey, changing the stips on the fly, where have I seen that before? Oh, yeah, the WWF. “Ass” count: 3. Eddy Guerrero, who apparently stole Flair’s Rolex, plays heel and challenges Saturn for the next match. Dammit, pick a side and stick to it with the Filthy Animals. Eddy Guerrero v. Saturn. Eddy works the knee and they brawl on the floor. Eddy takes a nasty bump on the stairs (called a “bump” by Tony – wow.) and Saturn works on the arm, back in the ring. Crowd is just ENTHRALLED with this, let me tell you. A couple of suplexes, and now Saturn goes for the knee. Crowd goes for the nacho stands. Eddy comes back with a brainbuster, but the frog splash misses. Eddy goes to the top and Saturn crotches him and superplexes him. Eddy reverses out of a Splash Mountain attempt (you DARE try that on Eddy?!?), and Flair runs in with a crowbar for the Sports Entertainment Finish ™. Yeah, advance those storylines, Russo! We don’t need those stupid pinfalls, that’s so 80s! Kidman & Torrie try for the save and get beaten and kissed, in that order. Dull match. ** Backstage, Goldberg is hammering on Sid. Blood is seen. Atta boy, Sid! And now, it’s another Sports Entertainment Moment as Buff comes out for an interview. On a PPV. Jarrett attacks, Lex Luger makes the save. Que? “Ass” count: 4. I’d be neglectful in not mentioning Luger’s pathetic missed guitar shot, as he nails Buff by mistake but doesn’t catch him with the flat of the guitar, so it doesn’t break. D’Oh. Backstage, it’s more Sports Entertainment as Eddy calls in the troops on his cell phone. Wonder who he stole that from… Berlyn v. Brad Armstrong. Total squash. I mean, no offense for Brad, until Berlyn tries the neckbreaker and BA reverses the legsweep for the pin! WHA?!? Jesus, if you’re gonna squash Brad, squash him, and if you want to give him the win, at least give me the decent match I know they can pull out. But this shit was ridiculous. 1/2*  (I know Russo really liked Brad and wanted to find a role for him, but Berlyn was still a relatively hot act at that point.  Just weirdness.)  Flair gives a ranting interview about all the sex he had with Kimberly and all the sex he’s gonna have with Torrie. It’s nice to see SOMEONE who can finally get motivated under this new atmosphere. World TV title match: Chris Benoit v. Rick Steiner. Steiner stalls to start. He runs through his same old, same old. Benoit comes back with a superplex and a plancha. More stalling, and then Rick goes with the greco-roman ballshot to take over. And now to the resting. Oh for god’s sake, you idiot, just let Benoit carry the damn match. Two released german suplexes, with Rick wandering around and nonchalantly taking his time between moves. Benoit comes back with the rolling german suplexes, and the ref gets bumped. Oh, man, I’ve got a bad feeling. Chair gets involved, and Rick nails Benoit with it to block the swandive. Malenko runs in…and turns on Benoit. (It was a SWERVE!)  Oh, shit, I KNEW that was gonna happen. Steiner gets the pin and the title, and once again Benoit is the plucky guy who “put up a good fight” and “came THAT close” but never quite gets it done. At least Malenko as a heel is a good thing. * The Total Package v. Bret Hart. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one, too. Lots of brawling for the first minutes, and not much happens as Luger starts working on the knee. Half crab…and BRET TAPS? What the hell was that? Kudos to Bret for selling the knee injury from Nitro, but LUGER? *1/2 Goldberg interview. “Ass” count jumps to 6, an unheard of total for WCW. Sports Entertainment Moment: Madusa (in a bikini) comes out to shill Nitro Perfume. She goes to the table, then tells the announcers that “this is BULLSHIT” and dumps the perfume on Bobby. They didn’t apologize for the bad word.  (Was this the deal where they were complaining about how bad that perfume smelled as well?  Where they were supposed to be shilling it but were just constantly harping on how shitty of a product it was?  So much weirdness at that time that didn’t make sense unless you were in on the joke.)  WCW World title: Sting v. Hulk Hogan. Hogan’s music plays, no one comes out. Sting comes out, Hogan’s music plays again, no one comes out. Finally he comes out in street clothes, says something to Sting, and does the “pin me, pay me” deal, laying down for the Sting pin. Hah, I called that one before the show started. DUD Big heel heat for Hogan there. I think we all know where this is leading.  (To Sting bombing as a heel and tanking ratings even worse than CM Punk currently is?  Because yeah, it did.  And before you get your panties all in a knot, I think we can agree that Punk is awesome as a heel, but it’s clearly not helping business in the slightest, especially wit a big DVD focusing on him and their flagship video game with him on the cover, and it was probably a huge mistake to even do the turn.)  US title match: Sid v. Goldberg. The Outsiders destroy Goldberg before the match. Sid attacks and the brawl is on. Sid is just absolutely bleeding a gusher, approaching 0.8 Muta. Man, he sucks as a wrestler, but his blading is top-notch. Historical note: This is the first non- Hogan, non-Flair, authorized blade on WCW PPV since about 1994. (Until Standards & Practices got wind of it.)  Much resting abounds, until the ref just stops the match due to bleeding. Goldberg gets the belt. THAT’S IT?!? Six months of shitty buildup and THAT’S the payoff? 1/4* Sting is back. He wants ANYBODY for the title tonight. Oh, you don’t wanna issue those open challenges, Sting, especially when Russo is booking… Strap match: DDP v. Ric Flair. Brawling into the crowd to start. Now Flair tapes an artery of his own, but not as bad as Sid. Flair gets laid out on the announce table and whipped. Flair beats the tar out of him back in the ring, and the figure-four gets two. Thank god, no “touch all the corners” rule. DDP gets a quick Diamond Cutter, but Flair has his foot on the ropes. Nope, Robinson counts three. Everyone seems very confused, but the decision stands. Weird. That was just out of nowhere. David hits the ring with a crowbar, but Kim takes him out with her Kung Fu Action Boobies ™ and a monster beatdown on the Flair family follows. Pretty nothing brawl with a weird ending. **1/2 And now, another Sports Entertainment Moment, as Flair is brought to the ambulance, and it gets hijacked by the Filthy Animals, who are now heels again. (BURIED IN THE DESERT!)  Monday Night RAW, April 1997. I’m just saying… Sting is back. Again. And this time, the one person you DON’T want answering your challenges answers… WCW World title match: Sting v. Goldberg. Welcome to Crash TV, as the guaranteed money-maker feud for Starrcade gets hot-shotted on a PPV likely to do a 0.4 buyrate. With three minutes left in the show, to boot. Sting dominates quickly, but spears Goldberg. Goldie no-sells, but Sting comes back with three Stinger splashes, also no-sold by Goldberg. Spear, jackhammer, see ya. SO WHY PUT HIM OVER SID FOR THE TITLE?!? Oh man, I need a shotgun and a bottle of bourbon after that one. 1/4*  (And THEN they just vacated the title anyway so they could do their stupid 64 person monstrosity leading up to the next shitty PPV.  Because Russo feels, like I do, that tournaments are awesome.  Unless Russo is booking them.)  The Bottom Line: Let’s see…Blood, scantily clad women, swearing, sexual innuendo, bad wrestling…hey, it’s RAW! While Tony Schiavone might preach “cutting-edge”, it’s really just WCW playing catch-up to where ECW and the WWF already were in 1997, and as Bart Simpson once said… “We’re supposed to catch up with the other class by going SLOWER? Cuckoo…” Welcome to the Russo era. Peak match: **1/2. I guess wrestlers need not apply. Thumbs down.

The Netcop Rant for WCW Halloween Havoc 98. I didn’t intend to do one, but y’all won’t leave me alone… – Note: My roommate and his crack-smoking brother were busy having a domestic altercation for a good chunk of the first hour and a half of this show, so if I missed or glossed over anything important, it’s because I was distracted.  (Oh man, adventures with Andrew.  My use of the term “domestic altercation” here is an extreme understatement.  Anyway, in a related story, my CD player broke down around this time, so Andrew “acquired” one for me and sold it to me at a very reasonable price.  I’m going to assume he just had one around the house so I can sleep better at night.  Eventually he got better as a person and I considered him a friend for a few years after that.  Not anymore, sadly.  I’d like to get on my high horse and presume that my lineage is any better, but my brother is also a recovering addict, and in fact used to work for the Hell’s Angels as an associate before doing something really stupid to lose the job. Family, what can ya do?)  – Live from Lost Wages, NV – Your hosts are the Usual Gang of Idiots. – Opening T&A: The Nitro Girls “dance”. – Opening yakfest: Scheme Gene brings out Rick “Dumbest Man in the World…Next To Sting” Steiner. (Steiner’s more of a “Duh Duh” idiot, whereas Sting is a gullible idiot.  Different things.)  I’ve finally figured out that those knobs on Rick’s jacket are little bulldogs. Buff Bagwell comes out to offer to be in Rick’s corner, because he’d NEVER, ever, turn on him. No, seriously. Honest. This time he means it. Would he lie to us? – Opening match (finally): TV title, Chris Jericho v. Raven. Raven whines about his losing streak vis-a-vis a conspiracy against him. (There kind of was, in fact.)  Hey, maybe he should talk to Jericho. Jericho verbally berates him until Raven attacks and gets levelled by Jericho. Raven clotheslines him out of the ring and uses the STEEL steps to his advantage. Back in and Jericho gets to do his thing, hotshotting Raven and hitting the springboard dropkick, but misses a dive off the apron. Jericho goes headfirst to the STEEL steps again, but Raven takes his trademark upside-down bump to the STEEL railing. Back in and more international objects are utilized. Sleeper by Raven. Suplex to escape and a senton. Jericho with a charge out of the corner and gets caught with a powerbomb. They exchange more stuff. Raven gets the Even Flow for two, Jericho gets the Liontamer but he escapes. Kanyon jumps on the apron and gets knocked by Raven accidentally, allowing Jericho to get the Liontamer for real. Too much action to call in the last sequence, and a great opener. ****  (That is a great forgotten classic that deserves to be on a DVD somewhere.  Get on that shit, WWE!)  – Hogan comes out to talk, as PPV watchers switch channels by the thousands. He’s wearing an nWo Nitro shirt, thus confirming that they had nothing better to do with the 1,000,000 shirts that were produced for that purpose in late 1997. (Why not send them to starving kids in Africa like they do with the losing Super Bowl merchandise?  I know if I’d gone two weeks without proper nutrition, I’d be like “Sweet, a Hollywood Hogan t-shirt!”  I forget which comedian I paraphrased/stole that joke from, but kudos, because it’s a great one.)  – Meng v. Wrath. (I think this match would make the blog’s brain explode.) Wrath beats him out of the ring and hits the somersault off the apron he was working on while with Mortis. Back in the ring and Wrath hits a couple of clotheslines to force Meng to sell. Meltdown attempt #1 fails and Meng takes control. Crowd is gone. Does Meng even have any idea how to play to/against the crowd anymore? (He’s the MONSTER MENG!  He doesn’t care about the crowd!)  More slow boring offense from Meng. Wrath with a uranage for two. Meltdown for three. Good pop for Wrath. 1/4*  (And then Nash squashed him.  I mean, honest, I get the point of the winning streak ending like it did, because they were setting up Nash as the guy who ends streaks, but talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.)  – #1 contender’s match: Disco Inferno v. Juventud Guerrera. (#1 contender for what?  Drunken karaoke champion?) Disco takes control early but Juvy hits some flying stuff. They do an awkward spot that leads to a Rocker Dropper from Juvy, and Disco gets monkey flipped right out of the ring and Juvy follows him out with a flying headscissors on the floor. Back in and Disco with the chinlock. They trade more stuff and Juvy ends up hitting a wicked cross-body to Disco on the floor. Juvy flips out of a suplex and hits a rana. He goes for the Juvy Driver but Disco flips out and tries an inverted suplex, but both guys end up escaping and knocking each other out. Disco gets two. Juvy with a sunset flip but Disco smacks him down and does the Macarena, then uses the GIANT SWING OF DOOM~! and falls headfirst on Juvy’s crotch. It gets two. Disco goes to the top and takes way too long and gets crotched. Juvy with the rana off the top, and he goes to the top himself and nails the FLYING BODY ATTACK OF DEATH~! Juvy with the Rube-Goldbergian bulldog for two, but puts his head down on a whip and Disco hits the SWANK jumping piledriver for three. No Macarena, however. ***1/4 – 10 brownie points to whoever can identify who Rube Goldberg is and why I refer to Juvy’s bulldog in that matter… (Offer no longer valid.)  – More Nitro girls! You’re telling me they couldn’t have chopped 19 minutes of this shit out? And were they handing out breast implants at the door or what?  (10 brownie points to whoever can explain the logic of having NITRO Girls on a PPV.)  – More time wasting as Scott Steiner and the Giant challenge Rick and Buff for the tag titles later in the night. Never mind they probably knew that the show would run long as it is. I dunno, this is kind of suspicious. They NEVER used filler material before this (if you don’t count the wrestling, har har) on PPV, so why suddenly start sticking AT LEAST 10 minutes’ worth of interviews and Nitro Girls in there?  (In fact they did know the show was running long and they told cable companies well in advance, but 1998 wasn’t exactly the technical heyday that it is now, and most of them just weren’t able to block off all four hours, even with advance notice.  Thankfully, Bell Expressvu, or whatever the hell it was called at that point, was one of the ones who did.)  – Alex Wright v. Fit Finlay. Case in point, this match, which they already had in the can from the Thunder tapings a few nights before. There was no reason to even show this. How can Mike Tenay hype Hogan-Warrior II with a straight face.  (Because he’s dead inside?  That would certainly explain how he can watch Joseph Park get hit in the face with a hammer and just shrug it off.) And why are they talking about the main event during this match? Are there some channel surfers who were watching other PPV events and just suddenly decided to buy this one halfway through? This match is nothing incredibly special, as they go through the motions for about five minutes until Wright hits a reverse neckbreaker out of nowhere for the pin. Call it about **1/4.  (Trust me, the much more entertaining brawl was happening live in my apartment.)  – Lodi v. Saturn. Lodi is from “anywhere in the world but Las Vegas, Nevada”. I think we’ve made all the gay jokes about Saturn’s attire that can be humanly made. (But not about Lodi’s!)  A Saturn squash with Lodi stalling punctuated in between. T-bone suplex, falcon arrow suplex, Death Valley Driver. Next match. 1/2*  (Kudos to Lodi for really stepping up his sign-making game around this time.)  – The Idiots blather to waste more time. – More Nitro girls. – Cruiserweight title match: Kidman v. Disco Inferno. See, now why couldn’t this have been on Nitro? Disco controls to start but Kidman comes back with a botched flying headscissors. Disco with a drop toehold on the bottom rope. Disco mocks him and hits an elbow. Kidman takes a blind charge and Disco ducks, sending Kidman to the floor. Disco follows and Kidman improvises a springboard bulldog using the steps! Ouch! Kidman to the top but misses a splash. Disco gets two. Chinlock from Disco. To think that last year he was TV champion and losing to a woman. (It’s like it was only yesterday!  Oh wait, it was.)  Disco Sucks chant. Ricochet clothesline from Kidman, but Disco returns with a faceplant. Disco lays the smack down in the corner and teases a dance, drawing great heat. Belly to back suplex for two. More trash talk from Disco. He misses the boogie elbow off the second rope and Kidman with the sitting powerbomb for two. Cross corner whip and Kidman eats elbow, but manages to snap off a powerslam for two. Dropkick misses. Disco nails the piledriver for two. Kidman up with a springboard bulldog, but Disco turns it into a suplex and hits a gourdbuster for two. Macarena Driver gets turned into the facebuster and that of course leads to the shooting star press for three. Disappointing. **1/2 Allow me to add my voice to those saying that he should take two months and tour Japan. – Gonnad’s music video. Just guess how much I loved this. It should be noted that he equates his music with weed, alcohol, heroin and crack. Great message to be sending out to the kids. (Better this than Skrillex.)  And it’s yet another five minutes that didn’t need to be on PPV. – WCW World tag team title match: Scott Steiner & The Giant v. Rick Steiner & Buff Bagwell. Tony at least pays lip service to continuity by noting that nWo rules apply to the tag team titles and the nWo can pretty much do whatever they want with them. Buff isn’t even dressed to wrestle. If you need to know what happens here, just go back and read my Havoc 95 rant because THE SAME FUCKING THING HAPPENS HERE. Tony has the temerity to actually bring up the name of Ch__ky the evil doll. I won’t dignify it by writing it. Giant beats on Rick to start, and then Scott gets his licks in. Nothing notable enough to type going on. It’s so sad that Scott turned on Rick in FEBRUARY and they’re just fighting for the first time now. Rick comes back and stupidly tags in Bagwell, who promptly turns on Rick, duh. The announcers try to sell Bagwell as being REALLY convincing this time, unlike the other 14 times. Scott and Giant continue the assault on the partnerless Rick as Bagwell retreats. Fans start a spontaneous Goldberg chant in hopes of coaxing him into helping. Giant better lose some weight if he wants to jump ship. (He did OK for himself in WWE.)  They don’t take fat boys up North. Giant teases some pinfalls but refuses to pin him. Rick fights back but Scott crotches him. That’s about four in the same match. Giant slowly….climbs…the…ropes and hits Scott with a missile dropkick by mistake. Rick comes back with the usual, nails a bulldog off the top on the Giant…and gets the pin? See, the faces are generally supposed to lose in these situations. (Oh yeah, this was the tremendously entertaining portion of the WCW booking period where they had Rick Steiner and Kenny Kaos as tag team champions, as well as a brief stint with Judy Bagwell as a champion.)  Well, anyway, we get… – Rick Steiner v. Scott Steiner. Scott bails but Rick drags him back into the ring. Rick destroys his brother to great crowd reaction. (Running theme at the apartment that day.)  Scott crotches him again to retake control. Tenay notes that it makes four, if you’re counting. Well, Mike, some of us ARE, thank you. Rick comes back but Buffy returns with a Bill Clinton mask and Stevie Ray. Buff cleans house with the ODOR EATER OF DEATH~! and the bell rings. But the match seems to be continuing. Buff counts a couple of two counts himself but Rick keeps kicking out so Buff dumps the ref. Rick takes out Buff and nails the bulldog on Scott, and Nick Patrick runs in to count the final three. Entertaining crap. Call the whole thing ** because I’m feeling generous.  (By “generous” I mean “A few drinks into the show.”)  – Video package for Hall v. Nash. – Scott Hall v. Kevin Nash. The ring entrances give me time to change my laundry and go get my dinner ready. I’m serious. (One thing about apartment living that I will NEVER miss is shared laundry facilities.  Home ownership is worth it strictly for being able to do laundry whenever and however often you damn well want, without scrounging for quarters.)  Hall hammers Nash right from the start and chokes him out with a cable. Hall trash talks him over the PA and brings him back in the ring for more abuse. At least he’s not “drunk”. (Although he was likely drunk.)  Big Wolfpac chant. Edge attempt early but Nash fights him off. The Idiots note that Nash isn’t really fighting back. (He is pretty passive-aggressive.)  Nash with two cross-corner whips and a sidewalk slam, not called anything by Tony or anyone else. Slugfest. Hall with the usual as the Idiots trip all over each other to call the Outsiders the GREATEST TAG TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF OUR SPORT~! Wasn’t that the Steiners about a half an hour ago? (Plan change.) Nash comes back with his usual. Nice to see the huge contract hasn’t affected Nash’s work ethic or anything. Nash proceeds to destroy Hall with knees in the corner while mocking his drinking problem. Big boot and a powerbomb. Another one, and Nash simply walks away, not wanting to beat Hall. Hall wins by countout. *1/2  (And yet Nash STILL got the Starrcade title shot after losing a major match by countout!  I hope someone got fired over that one!  Oh yeah, Bischoff did, never mind.)  – US title match: Bret Hart v. Sting. Bret stalls *forever* before Sting drags him in and beats on him. Bret retakes control (very slowly) and stomps and chokes. Man, the Nitro brawl was way better than this. Crowd is dead. I would have thought they’d have been able to work together much better. Bret with the FIVE MOVES OF DOOM!, but Sting catches him off the second rope and applies the Scorpion. Sting works on the leg, but Bret plays possum. Sting stomps on the knee anyway, which allows Bret the opportunity to load up an international object. Sting gets it but the ref blocks, allowing crotchshot #5509 on the evening. Okay, this time it’s the FIVE MOVES OF DOOM! for real. They end up on the floor and Bret drops Sting on the STEEL railing. Watch that potty mouth, Bret. Ref checks on Sting and gets an elbow in the mouth for his trouble, then Bret drops a leg on him for good measure. They exchange some stuff (carefully stepping over the referee) and Sting gives Bret a superplex which is for naught. Stinger splash but Sting nails the ringpost. Bret grabs the BASEBALL BAT OF DEATH! and wallops Sting a few times, then applies the Sharpshooter as the ref revives to count the “submission”. Ugh, five minutes too long with a silly ending. Bret NEVER did this sort of thing in the WWF. He always won clean, even if he had to cheat outrageously on the way. This was just a typical cheap Hogan ending. **, and I’m very disappointed in both guys. Sting does a stretcher job. Reports say this will lead to a Sting vacation. Well, fuck, what do you call ALL OF 1997???? Maternity leave?  (Bret so did not give a single shit by this point.)  – THE MOST ANTICIPATED RETURN MATCH IN THE HISTORY OF OUR SPORT! : Hulk Hogan (w/ boa) v. The Warrior (w/out “Ultimate” or a hope in hell of winning). The Idiots wax about Hogan needing to beat the Warrior until I feel like singing ABBA’s “Waterloo” in tribute. Waterloo, everybody’s got their Waterloo… Duelling “Hogan sucks” and “Warrior sucks” chants to begin. (Hey now, let’s settle this right now and agree they both suck, OK?)Warrior apparently calls his fans the Warriors. I’m surprised he hasn’t launched a lawsuit against them, too, for copyright violation. Nothing personally offensive meant to anyone, but if you liked this match you’re a goddamn crack-smoking braindead moron.  (People have quoted that line many times.  I take a certain amount of pride in it.)  Much like my roommate’s brother, but that’s another story. Hogan stalls, Warrior stalls. Warrior calls for a test of strength. Hogan beats on him. Only two or three actually hit. Hogan with more alleged offense. Test of strength. The boring chants begin. They trade wristlocks and do the criss-cross-slam spot, which Warrior no-sells and responds with his own. Hey, where I have seen that before? Hogan gets clotheslined to the floor, but at least he doesn’t blow out his knee this time. Weak brawling on the outside. Mike Tenay calls it a “fine wrestling match” and I feel like slapping him around for whoring himself like this. Back in the ring and Patrick gets bumped. The nWo comes out to help and they botch it one-by-one. Hogan with a belly-to-back for two. Hogan whips Warrior with the WORKOUT BELT OF DEATH! and chokes him out. This is turning into a Roddy Piper comedy match. Elbows that always miss, well, miss. Warrior fucks up a chop block but misses the big splash. Now Warrior’s got the WORKOUT BELT OF DEATH! and gives Hogan some without a DQ. Now Hogan digs out the “fireball” but it fails. (Man, when nitrocellulose can’t even save a match, you’re in trouble.  Jerry Lawler could draw a house for years on end with well-timed fireballs.) This is just sad, my friends. So now Warrior has to improvise something to cover up. Double axehandle off the top, which Hogan blocks (called as such by the announcers) but Warrior fails to sell so Hogan sells getting hit and the Idiots just sit there silently for a while. Hogan blades and sets up the legdrop, which misses. Horace Hogan wanders out with a chair as Warrior hulks up. THREE CLOTHESLINES OF DEATH! Bischoff distracts the referee as Horace nails Warrior with a weak chairshot to the back, allowing Hogan to get the pin. Geez, where’s the Disciple when you need him, Warrior? (Selling coke on the subway.)  What a fucking farce this was. -** I would have boosted it to a DUD had the attempted Warrior barbeque gone down, but it didn’t.  (That rating feels a bit generous to me.  I’m thinking –****)  – WCW World title match: Goldberg v. Diamond Dallas Page. It’s pretty sad when Hogan does 20 minutes of every cheap Memphis heel tactic known to man and Jerry Lawler and gets zero reaction, but Goldberg and Page blow the roof off the joint with a straight wrestling match. It’s sad in that Hogan is probably going to repeat the same match at World War III and get the World title, not in that straight wrestling matches are bad.  (Boy, Hogan really REALLY wanted that win back, but Nash’s asskiss-fu was stronger, I guess.)  I really, really hope the Braindead Suits in charge of WCW are paying attention. (They weren’t.  Ever.)  Goldberg tosses DDP around out of the lockup to a huge pop. DDP mouths him off and they go tumbling out of the ring. DDP takes down Goldberg, who flips and lands on his feet. Fireman’s carry and cross armbreaker from Goldberg. DDP up with a jawbreaker and he takes control with some good wrestling. Goldberg tosses him and DDP with a necksnap off the top rope. Whip to the corner and russian legsweep for two. Goldberg is selling and everything. Front facelock slows things down. Goldberg knees out and spins off a neckbreaker. Suplex variation from Goldberg and a sidewalk slam. He should be wrestling like this all the time. Back with the cross arm-breaker on DDP. Whip and DDP with a flying headscissors, but Goldberg with a superkick. Charge and Goldberg goes to the post and fucks up his shoulder. See, now DDP should have gone to work on the arm, but that’s a minor point. DDP with a clothesline off the top for two. Goldberg whips DDP off the ropes with one arm but gets DDT’d. DDP signals for the Diamond Cutter but Goldberg pops up and spears him, further injuring the arm. The crowd is rabid. And he’s STILL selling the arm injury! He goes for the jackhammer but the arm is gone and Page gets out and hits the Diamond Cutter! Gets a very dramatic two count. Page tries a suplex but Goldberg reverses to the Jackhammer for the win. Best Goldberg match ever. What the hell, I’m feeling generous. ***3/4 – World War III promo. The Bottom Line: Two really good matches, one good match and a whole lot of mediocre->crappy stuff is good enough for a thumbs up from me. Show ran WAY too long, however and there was way too much filler, however, so this isn’t a glowing recommendation by any means, but WCW avoids the hot pokers this time around with a good effort.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Halloween Havoc 1997. – Okay, so here’s the deal: Much like my King of the Ring 95 rant, I felt unsatisfied with my original rant for this show that I did in 1997 (even though it was plugged by Rick Scaia during the days of Online Onslaught) and so I decided to rewatch the show and update my notes, and subsequently the rant, for a more modern perspective. As well, the original show was rated using the Hot Poker up the Ass rating system, which was cited by some as being too difficult to use as an objective ratings source. (Cited by JERKS maybe.)  So here’s some of the original, mixed in with some new stuff, along with times and star ratings and more up to date comments. Enjoy.  (Oh geez, I’m actually ripping off 99 Scott, I guess.)  – Live from Las Vegas, Nevada. – Your hosts are Schiavone, Heenan and Dusty. – Opening match: Yuji Nagata v. Ultimo Dragon. Remember a few years ago some video game company releasing a bio-feedback bodysuit for fighting games? That’s what Nagata’s outfit looked like. This was probably one of the dumbest choices for a feud in 1997, because Nagata is a heavyweight and Dragon is a cruiserweight. A knee used to block the handspring elbow is a nice touch from Nagata. Nasty kicks, too. Nagata works on the shoulder, then applies a sort of figure four to further the damage. Oy vay. Hey, Yuji, the arm is ATTACHED TO THE SHOULDER. Just thought you might like to know. Finally, he hits the Herb Kunze armbar for the tap out at 9:47, which is a pretty bad ending and didn’t fit with the flow of the match. Still, good match otherwise. ***1/2  (That rating seems a bit disconnected with the match description.)  – Gedo v. Chris Jericho. For those of you not acquainted with the finer points of my tastes in Japanese wrestling, let’s just say I hate Gedo’s guts and wish he was dead and leave it at that. (I’ve since gotten over it.)  He was nice enough to chop off his dumbass Don King hairdo for this match, but the jumpsuit remains, in fashionable banana yellow. Tenay scares the hell out of me by suggesting that WCW was interested in bringing Jado and Fuyiki over to join Gedo. DEAR GOD, NO! Tenay also annoys me by reminding everyone that Gedo got unfairly pushed to the finals of the 1995 Super J Cup, losing to Jushin Liger, but not before single-handedly dragging the entire show down a notch. Standard Gedo v. Jericho WAR match here, with the only notable bit being Jericho blowing a top rope rana so badly that I’m surprised (and a little disappointed) that he didn’t break Gedo’s neck and retire him forever. To give you an idea, the announcers note that Gedo has a love for 1970’s style southern brawling, and compare him to Dusty Rhodes. Yes, he’s THAT BAD. Liontamer gets the submission at 7:16. Match was good. ***1/4 – Cruiserweight title, mask v. title: Eddy Guerrero v. Rey Mysterio Jr. Rey has his “SLAM EVIL!” alternate costume tonight. Big heel heat for Eddy here. Good fast sequence to start, with Rey mistiming a highspot and Eddy covering by bumping him onto the floor. Eddy springboards in and hits some stiff shots. Rey with a dropkick and Eddy blocks a handspring with a backdrop suplex and a jackhammerish move for two. Tilt-a-whirl gets two. Eddy goes for an abdominal stretch and turns it into a nasty pumphandle backbreaker. Ee-yow! It gets two. Eddy applies a knucklelock and gets a few twos. Rey fights up and goes into a springboard DDT. Dropkick sends Eddy to the floor, but Eddy thinks ahead of him and dodges the highspot. Brawling on the floor. Back in and Eddy rips at the mask while in a rear chinlock. Gory Special is reversed into an armdrag, so Eddy dropkicks him in the face and into another submission move. Flying elbow gets two. Rey is in the Tree of Woe, and Eddy gleefully charges, but misses and crotches himself. Rey hits a plancha as Eddy bails. Back in, and Rey snaps off a rana for two. Headscissors puts Eddy on the floor again, and Rey follows with a somersault plancha. Back in, and Rey hits a corkscrew moonsault for two. Moonsault #2 hits the knees and Eddy nearly KILLS him with a powerbomb. He misses a blind charge and Rey comes back with the rana, but gets caught with a backbreaker. Blown spot, but I can forgive it. Frog splash misses, and they head to the top and fight over a superplex. Eddy maneuvers into Splash Mountain, but Rey reverses to the rana for the pin at 13:49 for the title. Whew. ***** I still liked Hell in a Cell better for emotional impact and heat, but this was the better pure match. – Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan do a soundbite where Hogan threatens not to wrestle until WCW can guarantee Sting won’t be in the building. This is stupid on many levels. – Steve MacMichael v. Alex Wright. Bill Goldberg comes out as Debra distracts the referee and gives Alex the win. Okay, that’s not exactly how it happened. It was more like Debra walks around the ring and the referee wanders over for no good reason and starts yapping at her. She *then* jumps onto the apron and “distracts” the referee. Bill wanders in, takes 15 or 20 seconds readying himself, clips MacMichael (nearly knocking over the referee), then does the JackHammer not two feet away from the referee. The referee glanced over his shoulder *twice* and clearly saw what was going on. Then Goldberg picks up Wright, heaves him onto MacMichael, and finally leaves just before the ref turns around. This was SO STUPID. The announcers spend the entirety of the match talking about Hogan v. Piper later. Match ran 6:30. DUD  (Remember when Goldberg was a heel?)  – Disco Inferno v. Jacqueline. I was pretty pissed off about the match back in 1997, but with all the crap that has gone on in wrestling since then, I’ve mellowed to it. The match is still a horrible abomination, and Jackie isn’t just a bad female wrestler, she’s a bad wrestler period. But now I can just view it as the crappy match it is, rather than a personal offense. (I think that if there’s one thing Vince Russo has taught all of us, it’s that things can ALWAYS be worse.)  Jackie gets the pin off a cradle at 9:39, 9:00 of which was stalling. DUD – US title match: Curt Hennig v. Ric Flair (US title). Hennig takes the Pillman bump to the railing. Hennig’s oversell of the chops is glorious to see, back when Curt gave a damn. Hennig works the knee very well, too. The announcers are STILL talking about the main event. Match kinda drags, however, so it’s excusable. The belt (which was the CRUISERWEIGHT belt, by the way, instead of the US belt) gets involved, and Flair uses it for the DQ at 13:55. A very watchable match ruined by another screwjob ending. **1/4 – Scott Hall v. Lex Luger. Oh, lord. Why do you test me so? Just to sum up this whole match, there’s a spot where Scott Hall is holding both of Luger’s wrists behind Luger’s back, in a surfboard move. Luger goes behind and reverses it, but Hall is STILL HOLDING LUGER’S WRISTS. Uh, Scott, why don’t you just LET GO OF HIS WRISTS? It was that bad, folks. Ending #1: Lex does his obligatory 3 offensive moves in succession (in this case, an atomic drop done 3 times) and goes for the rack, but Syxx comes in and misses a kick to the head (which Lex sells anyway) and allows Scott to hit the Outsider Edge and get the (very reluctant) pin from Larry Z at 12:38. But Larry demands instant replay, and match starts again. Luger gets Hall in the rack 5 seconds later, Syxx runs in, DQ. I think. No decision was announced. Bischoff runs in and takes out Zbyszko, just to continue making himself look better than every wrestler, announcer and referee in his whole company. Utter waste of 20 minutes. * – Las Vegas Death Match: DDP v. Randy Savage. DDP has suddenly acquired some sort of padding taped to his ribs here.  (And it stayed there for like 3 years.) They go into the crowd and do basically nothing. They hit each other with styrofoam props and sell it. Kimberly comes out and drags Liz back to the dressing room by the hair in a pointless spot that would have been much improved by them ripping each other’s clothes off and falling into a conveniently placed tub of jello. Neither girl is seen again after they go back to the dressing room. Ref takes a bump as DDP hits the Diamond Cutter, then Fake Sting #2939B (aka Hulk Hogan) comes out (even the announcers aren’t buying it this time), hits DDP with the bat and the referee wakes up and counts DDP out at 18:05. I enjoyed this MUCH more on second viewing. **** – “Main” event: Roddy Piper v. Hulk Hogan (non-title). Not only was the match bad, but they couldn’t even decide on the rules. They spent most of the match fighting to get out of the cage like in a WWF style match, but at one point both guys walked out the door and fought outside the cage. Then when they got back in, they fought to get out again. They spend 40% of the match hanging from the cage in some form. Hulk gets the advantage, the ref comes in to count the pin, Piper kicks out. Sleeper, Piper wins at 13:14. I guess WCW’s thinking was that everyone is going to buy Starrcade anyway, so who cares if the World champ is made to look foolish by Piper two months beforehand? (Well everyone did buy Starrcade at least.)  Savage leapt off the top of the cage in a spot that would have been cooler had the cage not been so high up and far away from the ring that he would have needed a tracking system to actually hit Piper from where he jumped from. Hogan and Savage handcuff Piper to the cage, some fake Stings run in, a fan runs in and the Megapowers beat him up too, show over. Huh? -** The Bottom Line: I brutalized this show on first viewing, but after two years of perspective, this is really quite an enjoyable show with an amazing FOUR matches at *** or better, and two of them at **** or better. Even with the nWo bullshit, you can’t really ask much more than that. I’m reversing my original thumbs down and going thumbs up for this one.  (Really, 15 years later the only thing anyone remembers is Eddy v. Rey, but it was a hell of a match.)

The Netcop Retro Rant for Halloween Havoc 1996. – Apologies for being a day late with this one, but I had to get my nerve up to sit through it. By the way, kudos to everyone who pointed out the truly frightening proportion of my prognosticative powers, with regards to the Fabulous Moolah. It still gives me nightmares, too.  (I believe that was in reference to my comment that Moolah could end up winning the Women’s title any day now, and then that very thing happened.)  – Live from Lost Wages, Nevada. – Your hosts are Tony, Bobby and Dusty. – Opening match, Cruiserweight title: Rey Mysterio Jr. v. Dean Malenko. This one had a real unusual backstory to it: See, Mysterio won the title from Malenko, and Malenko was upset at losing his title and decided he wanted a rematch. You don’t see that kind of edgy storyline these days. Malenko is a full heel at this point, for those who have trouble keeping track, much like myself. Tenay notes that Rey is nothing without his mask. Two years later and suddenly it’s “Rey has improved peripheral vision without the mask” because American fans are too stupid to know about the Mexican mask heritage. Doncha love Eric Bischoff? (12 years later and it’s “Rey can live in a gold-plated mansion because of all the masks he sells in WWE.”) Mysterio was not yet over at this point, as fan reactions indicated. Much like the Hardy Boys, the fans pop for highspots and not much else. Mysterio steals back his stolen mask from Malenko at one point, and does a neat little mask switcheroo in mid-ring while Malenko is on the outside. Dean comes back and works the knee extensively. Superplex gets two, and it’s more knee workage. Rey gets a quick small package for two, and then Dean goes to an extended sleeper sequence to quiet the crowd. A hammerlocked northern lights suplex (ouch!) gets two. They fight on the top rope and both bump to the floor. Rey makes the big comeback and they go into a complex pinning sequence, finished by Dean as he simply clotheslines Rey. Remember that for later. Dean bails, and Rey follows with a corkscrew quebrada. Rey with the rana for two, and a second attempt is turned into a powerbomb by Dean for two. Rey puts Dean in position for the top rope rana, but Dean blocks that as well with a powerbomb, which this time is enough to put him away at 18:26 and regain the title. He gets a BIG pop too. One thing about 1996 WCW: You sure got a lot of 20 minute cruiserweight matches. ***1/2  (What a wacky idea.)  – Lord of the Ring match: Eddy Guerrero v. Diamond Dallas Page. This is the final blowoff for the meaningless “Lord of the Ring” title won by DDP at Slamboree 96. The REAL purpose of the feud was to put DDP in a series of good matches with the Guerrero family to trick the fans into thinking he had improved as a wrestler. And obviously it worked, because by the time the general populace figured out he was still essentially useless, he had 2 World titles under his belt.  (Oh come on, he wasn’t USELESS.) It should be noted that Nick Patrick is into his first Evil Referee stint, wearing a neck brace and selling a crippling neck injury all night. Eddy babysits DDP through a wrestling sequence to start, and a long headlock follows. DDP bails and they brawl on the floor. Back in the ring, and DDP crotches him on the top to take control. He gets a rope-assisted two count. Good. I approve of heels who put their feet on the ropes. DDP still stalls too much in between moves at this point, however. A tilt-a-whirl slam gets two, prompting a shoving match with Patrick, which in turn allows Eddy to roll him up for two. Eddy comes back and again carries DDP through a pinning reversal sequence, which is ended by DDP lifting Malenko’s move and clotheslining Eddy, just like in the last match. See how smart he is, making sure to associate himself with the good workers and use their tactics. And sure enough, the clothesline gets a good pop, too, just like it did for Dean. They exchange more two-counts, until gets a pancake and a rotation powerbomb. Eddy is stunned, and DDP finishes him with a sloppy Diamond Cutter (looking closer to the original form it held — a direct ripoff of the Ace Crusher, before evolving into the more “snapped off” version he uses today) at 13:38. Anticlimactic ending to an okay match. **1/2  (I must have had it in for DDP at that point.)  – The Giant v. Jeff Jarrett. The issue was that the Giant stole the US title belt from Ric Flair and beat him up, so Flair brought Jarrett into WCW to help him out. And to say that the fans didn’t take to Jarrett would be a gross understatement. Had Jarrett just accepted the nWo’s original offer, he might have been over and everything. As it is, supposed babyface Jarrett gets booed out of the building here. Bringing Flair out with him helps some. A little. Okay, not at all. Jarrett uses completely unsound strategy, trying wrestling moves on him and getting tossed like a lawn dart as a result. Repeat SEVERAL TIMES. Note to Paul Wight: Backbreakers are not your strong point. Giant misses a blind charge and Jarrett plays David & Goliath with him, trying to knock him down. They end up fighting outside and Flair low-blows the Giant in view of the ref for the DQ at 9:55. Well, Flair certainly tried there, I’ll give him that. 1/2* – Syxx v. Chris Jericho. This could have been great, but Syxx absolutely did not care at this point, and the match was merely a backdrop to set up Jericho v. Nick Patrick at the next PPV. It should be noted that X-Pac is my least favorite wrestler name to type, because the keyboard positioning is so awkward. Just for those who care. (Other difficult ones:  Christian and Psychosis)  Syxx was still very much Lightning Kid-ish at this point, sticking out his tongue and tossing off highspots, before a neck injury later in 1997 would essentially ground him and turn him into the more complete wrestler he is today. (By “complete” I obviously meant “addicted to painkillers”)  Tumbling sequence to start here. It is pointed out that the Dungeon of Doom is sitting in the front row. Geez, WCW comps the freakin’ DoD front row seats and they wonder why the nWo ended up kicking their butt? Jericho gets knocked to the floor and they brawl there. Back in and Syxx hits the kick combo and goes to the chinlock. A blind charge misses and Jericho takes over. He gets a few two-counts and Patrick gets increasingly biased, pissing off the crowd. Syxx hits a simple leg lariat, and Patrick supposedly quick-counts on Jericho, although it looked fine to me. Storyline overwhelmed the match here. *1/2 By the way, someone e-mailed me after Unforgiven to make the case that this match was better than the X-Pac v. Jericho one there. I personally think they had it confused with the Syxx-Jericho series from 1997, but to each their own, I guess. – Arn Anderson v. Lex Luger. Since I can’t be bothered to remember what the storyline was here, Tony kindly explains it: Arn was pissed at Luger for being a wuss and submitting at Wargames to give the nWo the win. Okey doke. Arn does some quick damage, but turns his back to gloat and Luger comes back. And yells a lot, can’t forget that. The Dungeon are cheering Lex. Lex works AA’s back, and nothing of note happens for a good long time. Arn gets a fluke spinebuster and starts working on Luger’s back. And thanks to Dusty, I can now use the phrase “Bulla Bulla” in proper context, and DON’T THINK I WON’T! Years later, Luger blocks a DDT and makes the superman comeback, which I guess is apropos for a guy with initials “LL”. Ref gets bumped and they fight on the floor. Luger gives him a few lovetaps with a chair, then racks Arn for the submission at 12:20. Whoa, check the irony on that one! It’s so poetic, it’s like Keats and Kerouac rolled into one. *  (Arn was definitely on the tail end of his career at this point, only a few months away from retirement.)  – The Feces of Fear v. Chris Benoit & Steve McMichael. Hey, who’s the bimbo with Mongo? Debbie or Brenda or something like that. Meng and Mongo start, and I half-hope for a Ming the Merciless run-in to complete that whole vowel sequence thing. Benoit hangs tough with the Barbarian for a bit, but the demons booking this thing insist on giving the fans that Meng v. Mongo sumo showdown they were clamouring for. Mongo gets beat on for a bit, coming back with a pair of dropkicks so sad and yet inspired at the same time that I feel the need to create a new rating scale: The Erik Watts Scale. Just as awesome bladejobs are rated on the Muta Scale, I now christen this new system, whereby truly pathetic dropkicks will be rated against the mother of all bad dropkicks: Erik Watts’ belly-flop at Starrcade 92. In this case, we’ll call it 0.5 Watts. Feel free to play at home. Benoit tags in and promptly gets powerbombed. Whoops. Barbarian hits an admittedly impressive overhead belly-to-belly off the top, although it was basically Benoit doing a 15 foot dive across the ring from the top rope, but maybe that’s just the cynic in me talking. A double-team diving headbutt gets two. They hit a suplex and splash combo on Benoit, but Mongo utilizes his finisher — the briefcase to the head — on Meng for the Benoit pin at 9:20. Not as brutally bad as it could have been, I suppose. * – Mayday! Mayday! This show is going down faster than Missy Hyatt at a sex addict convention . . . – WCW World tag team title: Harlem Heat v. The Outsiders. Wait, wait, I feel a shill coming on… Coming soon to WrestleLine: The Netcop Revelation Rant, covering the epic rise and fall of the nWo from 1996-1999 and explaining just why Kevin Nash is such a tool. Be the first on your block to get a copy!  (That one never happened, by the way.  I was getting so sick of Wrestleline’s nonsense that I just never bothered to write it.  Original title was going to be “There Goes The Neighborhood” before others talked me into tying it into the classic literature theme of the previous two history pieces.  Basically the bulk of what I had written got turned into the nWo entry in my first book, in case you’re wondering if there’s secret unreleased stuff in my vault.)  Okay, got that out of the way. This, by the way, is the match that officially marks the end of tag team wrestling in North America as we liked it. Fans chant “Razor” and “Diesel” at various points in the match, depending on who’s in. Hall starts while Nash picks his nose on the apron and thinks up booking ideas. He tags in and does his usual stuff, but gets beatdown by Stevie Ray. Whoa, is that SELLING from Big Lazy? A Booker T axe kick gets two. I question booking the Outsiders as heels here, given the massive babyface reaction they’re getting. Booker T plays sucka-in-peril. Hall runs through his Razor Ramon stuff, until Sherri jumps on the apron to run interference. Hall kisses her in response, and I leave it as an exercise to the reader to make the proper cheap joke. I can’t do EVERYTHING, people. Stevie Ray gets the hot tag and they hit the Harlem Hangover, but the ref is distracted putting Stevie Ray out. In the meantime, Kevin Nash bullies Rob Parker into giving him the cane, and bashes it over Stevie’s head to give the Outsiders their first tag titles at 13:06. They pose with the belts in a famous image. Match was nothing. 1/2*  (Yeah, but the Outsiders were the biggest stars in the promotion, so having the belts elevated the title above the midcard nothing it was before that, at least.)  – WCW World title: Hulk Hogan v. Randy Savage. Hey, haven’t we seen this before? Oh yeah, on every other show of 1986 through 1998, inclusive. That’s right. The announcers mock Hogan’s obvious wig, left over from the Three Ninjas movie he did. (My wife looks after three elementary school aged boys, so recently I actually had a chance to watch said Three Ninjas movie on Netflix, and even the 8 year old wasn’t buying Hogan’s performance in it.  Holy GOD what a steaming pile of crap that movie was.)  Savage had a long winning streak to earn him this shot, whereby he LOST EVERY MATCH. But hey, WCW promised Hogan v. Savage months before the match, so Hogan v. Savage you get, even if Savage looked like a lame duck challenger.  (Yeah, but this show did a monster buyrate by WCW standards, and the Slim Jim sponsorship got them a bunch of money, so you can’t argue the effectiveness of the strategy.)  We get the mother of all stall sessions to start, as no real contact is made until FIVE MINUTES into the match. Hogan gets a simple punch at that point, and Savage starts selling as though the glove was loaded with buckshot like Iron Shiek’s boot. Hogan poses a lot. Savage comes back with a double- axehandle. More stupidity as Savage steals the sunglasses and wig that Hogan has been wearing the whole match and prances around with them. Is this WCW or the Geriatric Match from WrestleMania 12? They allegedly brawl on the floor, and deep down I almost hope for Savage to blade off the shot to the padded post he takes, just to complete the self- parody in a work of true artistic Sid-ism. (CALLBACK!  CALLBACK!  I gave up on that one too quickly.)  Liz wanders out, because obviously the bookers felt that the match was underbooked, what with only two nWo members at ringside to provide possible screwjob endings. By the way, for those who complain that *I* sold out (even though WrestleLine, a division of CBS Sportsline, which is in turn a division of the largest and most popular network on TV right now, hasn’t actually paid me anything yet for carrying this site) (While technically true, Mike Samuda sent me a pretty obscene chunk of money early in 2000 for no real reason, perhaps as a make-good for Wrestleline’s cheapness.  So I did get paid as of that writing, sort of, but only once.  Although considering all of Mike’s legal problems since then, I’m wondering if I unknowingly was aiding and abetting in some form…)  it should be noted that Randy Savage has Slim Jim ads right on his tights. Now, I’m not saying I personally wouldn’t sell vital organs to major corporations for the right amount of money, but really for an event sponsored by Slim Jim with the ringposts already replaced with Slim Jim ads, this just seems like overkill, and if there’s one thing that offends me more than corporate pandering, it’s bad taste. Anyway, Hogan hides behind Liz to stop Savage’s awesome offensive onslaught, and it works because Hogan gets the big boot soon after. Liz comes in and covers Savage up to prevent the legdrop. Hogan shoves her aside, but the legdrop misses. Then, in the REALLY embarrassing part, Dibiase hands Hogan an international object that looks suspiciously like a dildo. Liz steals it, which lends more credence to that theory. The ref then gets bumped, and Nick Patrick: Evil Referee takes his place. Nick’s so into his evil role I’m surprised he didn’t grow a handlebar moustache, just so he could twirl it like Oil-Can Harry. Savage hits the big elbow, and Patrick’s neck injury acts up, preventing the three count. So Savage wrests the SEX TOY OF DOOM from Hogan and hits him with it, but now Ted Dibiase and the Giant double-team Savage, toss him back in, and the pin is a formality at 18:35. Hell, with that kind of overblown booking protection, even I could look like a credible main eventer. Sadly, even with it, Hogan and Savage don’t. DUD – And now to top off the evening, Hogan talks. Roddy Piper interrupts to a big pop, and they do a long duelling microphone segment that would be cool if either guy still had all their original body parts and could back it up in the ring. I don’t see why Hogan and the Giant didn’t kick Piper’s ass right there, but I guess that’s why I’m not booking. The segment just goes on and on, until finally the PPV runs out of time and cuts them off. Thank heavens for allotted TV time. The Bottom Line: Hogan v. Savage is good for a laugh if your taste in humor runs towards crap, everything past the first two matches sucks, and the first two matches were done before and done better. The nWo is here, good wrestlers need not apply. I think I can speak for everyone when I say “Bulla Bulla”. You can’t get more eloquent and succinct an explanation than that. Bulla Bulla indeed.

– The Netcop Retro Rant for Halloween Havoc 1995. (This is definitely a show where I initially hated it, and then grew to love it in time.) – Live from Detroit, Michigan. – Your hosts are Tony and Bobby. – We are informed that Ric Flair has been attacked by Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman outside the arena, which may put the tag match with Flair & Sting against Anderson & Pillman in jeopardy. – Opening match, TV title: Diamond Dallas Page v. Johnny B. Badd. Remember when DDP was doing the opening match? (Well once he got to WWE, that would start happening again.)  “Badd” comes out of the dressing room, but the real one jumps DDP from behind to start the match. Bit of a brawl outside the ring, as Badd takes out Max Muscle and then puts a bucket on Page’s head. Whatever. Back in the ring and Badd with an armbar. Did Kim get a nosejob between then and now?  (She certainly had everything else worked on.)  Long wristlock-and-reversal sequence to waste time. Badd with a hiptoss into a cover for two. Badd with one of the TEN PUNCHES OF DOOM!, but Page dumps him face-first on the turnbuckle. Kimberly refuses to give him a “10”. See, Kimberly’s function used to be hanging around Page’s matches and holding up a big “10” sign whenever DDP did a good move. Yes, they actually pay people to think this stuff up. Page with some kicks and punches for a couple of two counts. Cross-corner whip, reversal and belly to back by DDP. Kim relents and gives him a 10, albeit reluctantly. Pancake piledriver for two. See, the angle was that DDP won 7 million dollars playing bingo, but it was actually Kim’s card, so she’s pissed off that he’s getting all the money.  (And why exactly have we not had a lottery winner gimmick since then?  What a WONDERFUL idea for turning someone heel!  The plucky babyface goes on a big losing streak, wins millions in the lottery and tells off his boss in Austin-like fashion, but then becomes a big jerk like the Million Dollar Man.  Classic soap opera!) It led to a big feud with DDP and Badd that led to Badd leaving for the WWF. DDP with the lucha-esque “El Chinlocko Reverso”. Badd with a backslide for two. Page with a clothesline. Page was horrible at this point, btw. Sunset flip try but Page sits on the shoulders for two and then Badd finishes the move for two. Page bodyslam for two. Another Greco-Roman chinlock. Badd escapes, but Maxx Muscle helps Page take him down again. I don’t know what became of Maxx, but he was just a big roid freak so I don’t really care.  (Wikipedia says that he retired in 2002.)  Back to the chinlock. Crowd is comatose. Badd with a belly to back to escape. Badd makes the superman comeback with a pair of atomic drops and a series of lefts. Flying headscissors and Badd off the top with a double axehandle, which Kimberly gives a 10, but the referee only gives two. Ligerbomb for two. Hiptoss reversed into a DDT by DDP. Only gets two. Diamond Cutter, but Badd holds the ropes and gets two. To the corner for the 10 PUNCHES OF DOOM! and DDP bails out over the top. Badd chases with a somersault plancha and tosses DDP back in, then slingshot splashes him for two. Maxx grabs him from the outside, miscommunication from the heels and Badd rolls him up for two. Badd gets dumped out and Maxx misses a charge at him. Another miscommunication spot and it’s enough for a new champion as Badd gets the pin. Bad match with a good ending to save it. ** – Zodiac (w/ Rey Mysterio’s music) v. Randy Savage. Zodiac is of course Brutus “the Booty Disciple Clipmaster without a Face” Beefcake. Savage and Zodiac fight outside the ring as an idiot fan runs into the ring. Security and the ref kick the crap out of the little puke to a big pop from the fans. They get back in and Savage finishes it about 10 seconds later with the big elbow. DUD  (Fun fact:  Zodiac was originally going to be the gimmick given to Tom Zenk in 1991, and then they held onto it for FOUR YEARS before finding someone dumb enough to take it.)  – Hotline shill as Gene notes Jimmy Hart was talking to someone he used to represent in another federation. Quick soundbites from Johnny B. – Revenge match: Road Warrior Hawk v. Kurasawa. No, it’s not the Japanese filmmaker, although if I made that joke only mdb and 5 or 6 others would probably get it anyway. Kurasawa is just some Japanese guy who liked to work on the arm. (DUDE!  That’s Manabu Nakanishi!  He’s friggin’ awesome!)  He wasn’t over, in case you couldn’t guess. Hawk batters him to start with the shoulderblock and neckbreaker. Fistdrop for two. Another two. Chops. Cross-corner charge misses but Hawk doesn’t sell. Gut wrench suplex by Hawk. Powerbomb, but Parker hooks the leg, allowing Kurasawa to slam Hawk, but miss an elbow off the top. Hawk clotheslines him over the top, then comes off the apron and clotheslines Parker. Hawk hits the ringpost, allowing Kurasawa to hit a pair of suplexes back in the ring and pin Hawk. Que? Parker was holding the ropes, but that came out of nowhere. Still, surprisingly decent match out of Hawk. **1/2  (Like I said, Nakanishi was awesome.)  – Jerry Lynn v. Sabu. (Did I read that right?)  Yes, you read that right. (Whew.)  Sabu worked for WCW for a couple of months in 1995, including this show. Sabu with an Asai moonsault right away. Lynn responds with a cross-body off the top to the floor. Back in and Lynn with a moonsault press for two. Ligerbomb for two. Charge misses and Sabu with a slingshot legdrop for two. Lynn with a belly to back for two. Lynn to the top and Sabu knocks him down and gives him a victory roll off the top for two. Sabu on the second rope and Lynn dropkicks him out of the ring. This is a total spotfest. Sabu finishes it with a slingshot moonsault out of nowhere for the pin. The Sheik tosses a fireball in Lynn’s face for fun. A bad match by today’s standards, but this was totally unlike anything ever seen in WCW at the time. ** – We go to the Taskmaster’s lair, as King Curtis yells a lot and Sullivan looks menacing. I should point out that Eric Bischoff was running WCW at the time. Not that I’m saying it was his idea, but he could very well have said “No, this is stupid, I don’t want to air this on my PPV” but he chose not to.  (Note the similarities to another angle currently stinking up TNA.)  – Mean Gene has some folks who won some motorcycle contest. Hogan (dressed like Hollywood Hogan without the painted beard) and Jimmy Hart present a bike. – Meng v. Lex Luger. Meng actually sells some stuff here. If Luger can win, he’ll wrestle Savage later because they some sort of issue. The Dungeon of Doom feud was so horribly confusing that I can’t even remember what the Luger-Savage thing was about. (Well we know what the issue became about years later…)  Luger with his usual stuff and they end up outside the ring, where Luger rams Meng’s arm into the ringpost. Wow, psychology and stuff. Meng kicks away. But Luger makes the comeback…then misses a charge to the corner. Luger tries a belly to back but Meng falls on him for two. Shoulderbreaker allows Meng the chance to stall. More kicks. Piledriver for two. Choking. Belly to back for two. I’m bored. Luger is (slowly) tossed out of the ring and Sullivan has words with him. The announcers speculate that Luger might be in cahoots, thus marking the last time any member of the WCW announce team made an intelligent comment. Back in and more kicks from Meng. They’ve given this fucking match like 15 minutes so far. Meng misses a dropkick and Luger dumps him out of the ring. Luger suplexes him back in off the apron. Three clotheslines to put Meng down and a backdrop. Another clothesline, and another. Why does he use the one move he can never hit so extensively? But wait, Meng has an international object in his boot and he nails Luger with it…but Sullivan comes in to break up the count, giving Luger the win by DQ. Uh, guys, if Sullivan broke up that pin then LUGER should have been DQ’d. Well, whatever. 1/2* – Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman v. Ric Flair & Sting. Everyone knew what was going to happen here, but it was still great to watch. Anderson and Flair had been bickering leading up to this, and they finally fought at Fall Brawl, with Pillman interfering, allowing Anderson to get the pin. So Flair begged Sting for help, bringing out a dozen kids painted with Stinger paint to plead for Sting’s help in a tag match. So Sting agreed. But Flair got “attacked” earlier in the evening and Sting comes out alone here. Sting and Arn start as the crowd chants “We Want Flair.” They do a full-nelson reversal spot and Arn bails. More chants from the crowd. Sting cleans house on both heels and they bail again. Pillman entices Sting to chase him outside but the attempted double-team fails as Sting takes out both guys. Arn & Brian are getting nowhere here. Sting press-slams Pillman, who tags out to Arn. Arn with some forearms and a piledriver try, but Sting reverses to a catapult that knocks Pillman off the apron to the railing. Boxing match between Sting and Arn, which Arn loses. Arn rams Sting’s head into Pillman’s to turn the tide. Whip and forearm shot to the gut. Stomp to the midsection…and Flair charges into the ring in street clothes as the crowd goes berserk! Pillman hammers Sting into the railing as Flair takes his place on the apron. Flair has a huge bandage on his head. Pillman hammers on Sting in the corner and Sting fights out, but gets caught in the wrong corner and double-teamed. Flair has the crowd in the palm of his hand. He takes off his shoe and swats at Arn with it to break up a chinlock. Sting lifts the knees on a Pillman splash, and Sting fights over to his corner to make the hot tag…but Arn catches him in time with a belly to back for two. Pillman antagonizes Flair enough to draw him away from the corner while Arn hammers Sting some more. Abdominal stretch on Sting, with the requisite cheating. Pillman mouths off at Flair and rubs Sting’s face into the mat. Half-crab with the requisite cheating. Field-goal kick to the ribs by Pillman for two. Double-teaming in the corner, but Sting fights outs against Arn, only to get caught with the spinebuster for two. Pillman with the elbow to the knee. Double-team leg split and Arn works on Sting’s knee some more. Flair is yelling inspirational words to Sting from the apron. God, this is so classic. Flair is the man. Sting escapes an Arn bearhug put Pillman takes him down again right away. Chops in the corner (whoo). Kind of a half-nelson by Pillman. But Sting fights out of the corner again, and rams the heels’ heads together to take them out. He sucks up every ounce of energy…and tags Flair! The crowd goes nuts! FLAIR TURNS ON STING! The Horsemen ride again and the crowd is absolutely shell-shocked. A beatdown results to bring the angle to it’s payoff. See, this is how it should have happened this time around: Flair and Anderson allow themselves to be demoralized by Bischoff to the point where they relent and join the nWo, then one day flip out and destroy some poor nWo sap. Psychological warfare at it’s finest. ***  (I’m even more deeply into this angle today than I was back then.  Yeah, at the time it seemed like yet another Sting the Giant Idiot feud, but it had layers.  Sting and everyone else was well aware that Flair was going to turn on them, and everyone SAID SO, but Sting and Flair were drawn together like co-dependent addicts sharing one last binge with each other, because Flair was compelled by his own nature, and I think deep down Sting wanted Flair to call his bluff so he could beat the shit out of him and have justification.  It’s just who they are.  Now THAT’S telling stories.)  – Long video review package of the Giant-Hogan feud. – Monster Truck Match: Hulk Hogan v. The Giant. I won’t even get into this one. Needless to say, it’s really fucking stupid. Hogan manages to push Giant’s truck out of the circle, and then they fight. But see, Giant was standing too close to the edge of the roof of Cobo Hall, and Hogan accidentally pushes him off. No, seriously. This is, of course, available on my Netcop Busts compilation as a shining example of one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.  (Giant FELL OFF THE ROOF OF THE ARENA.  And survived!  And they never even tried to explain it!  THUMBS UP!)  – Lex Luger v. Randy Savage. Whereas he was a face in the Meng match, now Luger is heelish here. Crowd is firmly behind Savage. Jimmy Hart makes his way to ringside a few seconds in. Luger pounds Savage in the corner. More rights. Some kicks. Necksnap on the top rope. Heenan flips out on the never-seen page Woodrow a few times because he’s so upset about the Giant falling off the roof. Luger with an axehandle on Savage as he’s draped over the railing. Savage rams Luger to the railing and STEEL stairs to fight back. Back in and Savage clotheslines him from behind and goes to the top, but catches a fist in the gut on the way down. Savage whips Luger to the corner, but eats knee and Luger cradles…but the ref is distracted by Jimmy. Hart and Luger end up colliding and Savage hits the big elbow for three. Bad match. 1/2* – WCW World title match: Hulk Hogan v. The Giant. Hogan enters first and everyone acts all shocked and stuff when the Giant makes his way out. Because he FELL OFF THE ROOF OF COBO HALL. And people say Val Venis is overstated. You know what the sad part is? These guys would go on to main event THREE MORE PAY PER VIEWS! Hogan with rights but the have no effect. Btw, if you think Giant is bad now… Bodyslam attempt but Giant screams like a sideshow freak and breaks out. Cross-corner whip and big boot. More forearms. Chops in the corner (whoo). Giant yells a lot. Maybe he should try All-Bran. Maybe he’s passing kidney stones. Boots in the corner. Cross-corner whip and another boot. Knucklelock brings Hogan to his knees. And he stays there for a while. Elbow and slam by the Giant. Legdrop misses and Hogan is revived. Head to the turnbuckle a couple of times and then the TEN PUNCHES OF DOOM! Biting from Hogan. FINGERNAIL SCRAPE OF DEATH! Cross-corner whip and clothesline, then more punches. Whip and clothesline. Another. Another and Giant goes over the top to the floor. Giant and Sullivan take a walk and Hogan brings them back. Poke to the eyes. More punches. Shoulderblock but Giant won’t go down. Again and Giant goes for the chokeslam but Hogan escapes. More punches and biting. Giant wiht a whip and a backbreaker. Giant stomps on his hands. Whip and a Giant bearhug. Hogan powers out but gets atomic dropped. Another bearhug. Hogan powers out again. Punches from Hogan, but Giant catches him with a chokeslam. Two count and the hulking up begins. He’s a house of fire, you know. Punches, big boot and bodyslam. Legdrop, but Jimmy Hart trips up the referee off-camera. Hogan helps him up and Hart officially turns on Hogan, pasting him with the title belt. Crowd is shocked. Luger and Savage run in to make the save, but Luger then further complicates the issue by turning on Savage! Then the Yeti (Ron Reese) comes in and does the double-team bearhug on Hogan, while, uh, gyrating his hips. The less said the better. The carnage continues. It is announced that Giant wins by DQ, since Hart was Hogan’s manager. The next night on Nitro, it was further announced that Hart had double-crossed Hogan before the match and wrote a waiver of the DQ rule into the contract, giving Giant the WCW World title. This was actually a better match than the ones that followed over the years. *1/2  (This was basically Vince Russo before Vince Russo, so I have to give it a pass just for sheer prescience.)  The Bottom Line: Well, the wrestling wasn’t great (or even good), but the storylines were actually coherent (if really stupid) and the shock booking approach set a change of pace for WCW that would redefine the company and propel them to the top. A recommended show, historically speaking. (It’s a ton of fun!) 

The Netcop Retro Rant for Halloween Havoc 1994. (Sorry about the Disqus issues lately.  I really do feel like they’re doing a passive-aggressive “force everyone into the new version” thing with all the mobile browser troubles and weird false positive spam stuff.  I’m really left with little choice but to switch to 2012 on a permanent basis and hope this crap resolves itself.  So for those who hate it, sorry.  And if you’re having trouble with it, I would again suggest dropping a line on the TWITTER MACHINE to @disqushelp.)  Ladies and Gentlemen, you are about to witness history. As my more devout followers (you know who you are) know already, I protested the Hulk Hogan title reign back in 1994 by doing a total and complete boycott of WCW programming from August of 1994 until November of 1995. This boycott stood until a few months ago, as I had never seen anything from Fall Brawl 1994 through Fall Brawl 1995 until I broke down and did them both for the Fall Brawl Retro Rant series last month. And now with the Havoc series, this will mark the first time ever that I have watched Halloween Havoc 1994, although I did see the Hogan-Flair match during the All Nighter II a couple of years later. So if you wanna stand up in tribute of the moment, I’ll wait for a bit. … There, that’s enough. – Live from Detroit, Michigan. – Your hosts are Tony & Bobby – Opening match, World TV title: Johnny B. Badd v. The Honky Tonk Man. Welcome to the Friends of Hogan Era, as almost anyone who’s sucked up to Hogan for the 5 years or so prior to this now gets a job with WCW and a push. Johnny has a pair of vampire fangs here, which I guess is supposed to make him look butch. Hah, doesn’t work, as the confetti gun and pyro- shooting robe is enough to put him at 7 on the Lenny-O-Meter. Stalling to start. Then cheating from HTM. As exciting as it sounds. Honky is just worthless at this point. Oh, wait, he draws money, or so he says. Maybe in 1987, Wayne, but your crap doesn’t draw flies anymore. (This was written before the promo that he cut on my voice mail, so maybe he was holding a grudge for a long-ass time.)  Same goes for Hulk these days. Resting abounds. Capetta starts counting down to the 10-minute limit at the FIVE minute mark, which pretty much telegraphs the finish right there. And people wonder why WCW sucked so much. Badd makes the comeback with one minute left, but HTM ducks the Tooty-Fruity Punch of DOOM and they roll around on the mat until the time limit. What a car wreck that match was. DUD – World tag team title match: Stars N Stripes v. Pretty Wonderful. Amazingly, WCW manages to recycle the SAME ANGLE as Bagwell had last year — the plucky, thrown-together team scores an upset win over the arrogant champs for the titles shortly before the PPV, only to stupidly give the former champs a rematch on the PPV. Tony even POINTS THIS OUT himself, thus completely giving away the finish for anyone who remembered what happened the previous year. And Tony even REMINDS us what happened the previous year. How does this man sleep at night? (On a bed of guaranteed contract money.)  Melee to start, as Roma and Bagwell blow some stuff. Have I mentioned recently how glad I am that I’ll never have to worry about seeing Roma in a major promotion again? Everyone does seem energetic tonight, at any rate. Bagwell gets to play Ricky Morton, falling victim to that dreaded Orndorff special — the ELECTRIC BOOGIE-WOOGIE ELBOWDROP! Rock stole the People’s Elbow from him, by the way.  (Oh yeah, I said it.  You can’t un-read it now!)  Roma does some stuff too, but it’s Roma, so does anyone care? He does manage to blow his patented dropkick, going too high on the move and missing Bagwell entirely. The beating continues until a pier-six erupts (Patriot not having made the tag, and thus being in there illegally) and the ref finally forces him out. In the meantime, Bagwell gets his fisherman’s suplex, but with the referee tied up with Patriot, that allows Roma to do the Midnight Express finish and drop an elbow off the top on Bagwell, then put Orndorff on top for the pin and the titles at 13:42. Patriot had no one but himself to blame for that one. **1/2 – Kevin Sullivan v. Evad Sullivan. Evad debuts “I Want To Be A Hulkamaniac” as his entrance music, and if you have that song running through your head right now, you damn well DESERVE IT. This is the long-awaited (cough cough) blowoff between the “Sullivan brothers” (who are obviously NOT brothers) after months of Kevin slapping Dave around. For those who don’t get the joke yet, Dave is dyslexic, so the joke on the net became that WCW would actually start spelling his name “Evad” and it stuck even after it was revealed to be a false rumor. Anyhoo, Evad dresses and acts like Hogan — except he’s MUCH MUCH WORSE. See if you can get to sleep now thinking about THAT one. Evad controls to start, but Kevin cheapshots him and takes over. He shoves the Hogan doo rag down Evad’s throat and hits the double-stomp, but Evad hulks up with the big boot. Kevin calms him down by waving the doo rag at him, but sucker punches him, and they fight on the floor. Evad beats the count and gets the win at 5:18. Next. 1/4*  (And then TNA copied the angle with Abyss and his Hall of Fame ring.)  – Arn Anderson v. Dustin Rhodes. Dustin needed help fighting the Stud Stable, so he did the dumbest thing humanly possible: He asked Arn Anderson. And sure enough, AA turned on him and left him for dead at Bash at the Beach, and thus we get this. Nice little mat sequence to start. Dustin gets a lariat, but goes to the top too soon and gets crotched. He manages to fight AA off and hit a lariat off the top for two anyway. Flip, Flop and Fly is countered with a punch to the head, and he takes over. Tony echoes my own thoughts on what a moron Dustin was to trust Arn to begin with.  (Even Arn himself basically told Dustin he was going to turn on him before it happened!)  Dustin works the arm. He tries the lariat but Arn moves and Rhodes takes a nice bump to the floor. AA pounds away, but gets caught in a bodyscissors, which he turns into a catapult. Dustin fights back and it’s a double-KO. Dustin recovers and the lariat gets two. Arn sneaks in a DDT try, but Dustin grabs the top rope to block and hits a stun-gun. Arn gets a sunset flip, but grabs the ropes for leverage, so the ref forces a break. Dustin then reverses for three at 9:50 of a good little match. ***1/4  (See, now this was a good story!  Dustin asks Arn for help, Arn turns on him, Dustin gets his revenge by beating him in single combat and emerging as the better man.  Why can’t WWE do this?)  – US title match: Hacksaw Duggan v. Steve Austin. This is of course the rematch from Fall Brawl 1994, and if you want to read about that travesty, I’m sure a link will have magically appeared by the time this gets posted. Austin blindsides him and attacks the knee, which Duggan basically ignores. Austin tries two double axehandles off the second rope, but Duggan nails him on the third attempt. A low blow ends that rally, however. The trick knee was acting up again, you see. Duggan comes back with the three-point stance, but Austin ducks and inadvertently backdrops Duggan over the top, basically ending the story of Stunning Steve on a lame DQ at 8:06. Match was there. * – Vader v. The Guardan Angel. Another rematch from Fall Brawl 1994. Vader stops by Muhammad Ali at ringside and gives him a “You’re the man!”, although it’s doubtful that Ali can even remember his own name at this point, let alone know who Vader is and why it was so cool for him to do that. Vader dominates, so Angel retaliates by going after Harley Race. He slams Vader onto Race for good measure. Woof. Angel with a suplex and a big boot, but Vader comes back with some VICIOUS looking jabs to the face. Crowd was “Oohing” and “Aahing” after four or five of THOSE suckers. He goes to the top but gets caught and powerslammed coming down. Vader manages a botched clothesline to take over. Pump splash gets two. Attempt #2 hits the knees, and Angel gets a splash of his own for two. Bossman slam gets two, but he breaks the count to chase Race. He suplexes Race into the ring, but as he lands Vader splashes him in a neat spot and gets the pin at 8:21. Nifty match. ***  (This was quite the feud, and the last time that Ray Traylor apparently gave a fuck.)  – Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck v. The Nasty Boys. The Nasties bring a pumpkin with them. Yes, that does become important later. The Stud Stable gets nowhere fast. Sags rubs his ass in Funk’s face, then it’s Pitty Citty. Funk’s a trooper, I’ll give him that. The heels come back and WE GOT CLUBBERIN’! Sorry, Dusty moment there. Terry bails and smashes a chair into his own head 10 times to revive himself. This match makes me wanna do the same. Buck tries to utilize an international object, but the ref sees and escorts him out, which allows bodyguard Meng to interfere, but that backfires, which allows Sags to piledrive Funk, on the PUMPKIN, for the pin at 7:54. Oh, man, this was Heroes of Wrestling bad. -** Hey, I just invented a new adjective…  (As noted before, this was seemingly the remnants of an idea that was pitched to Jim Cornette for the 91 show, whereby he’d get a pumpkin broken on his head and run around the ringside area with it lodged on there like Joey and the turkey.)  – WCW World title, career v. career: Hulk Hogan v. Ric Flair. Mr. T is the guest referee. Hogan goes nuts on Flair to start, prompting T to pull him off. Flair uses the opportunity to go for the leg, which was injured by that dastardly (and oh-so- mysterious) Masked Man at Clash 27. It goes back and forth for a while, with Mr. T actually preventing Hulk from doing his usual cheating. This allows Flair the advantage again. He heads to the top and Hogan crotches him, but runs into a boot on a blind charge. He no-sells the chops in the corner and rams Flair into the cage a few times. Flair tries to climb out but gets rammed into the cage again. Flair manages to go after the knee again, putting Hogan on the mat. Figure-four, on the wrong leg as usual. Hogan reverses, and Mr. T gets bumped. It gets nutso from here, as Sherri tries to climb in, but Jimmy Hart yanks her dress off to slow her down. Sting comes out of the crowd to help, but he gets jumped by the Masked Man (with Kung Fu Grip Lead Pipe Action!) and taken out of the equation. Sherri finally gets into the cage and she handcuffs T to the ropes and they double-team Hogan. He hulks up, beats up Sherri (what a role model), beats up Flair, big foot, legdrop, goodbye Flair. Of course, that retirement only lasted a little longer than Hogan’s. The overbooking was a little silly, but it was excellent for Hogan otherwise. **** – The aftermath: The Masked Man attacks Hogan during the post-match posing, but screws up and gets unmasked. And it’s…it’s…the Disciple! No, wait, that’s this year. It’s the Zodiac! The Clipmaster! The Man with No Name! The Booty Man! Brutus Beefcake! The Butcher! Whatever. The crowd is pretty shocked, however. And speaking of schizos, Kevin Sullivan and John “Sharkalanchequake” Tenta join in the attack and they splatter Hogan. Good for them. (The IDEA was solid there, since Beefcake was known as Hogan’s best friend and Earthquake drew some big money against Hogan.)  The Bottom Line: Skip every other match and it’s a pretty decent show. Of course, the NEXT PPV of 1994 would be headlined by Hogan v. Beefcake, so that pretty much flushed any goodwill from the online world down the crapper right there, but the intentions were good here at least. Still, not enough for a recommendation.  (I didn’t mind this show at all, but 94 WCW is obviously not for all tastes.)