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Episode 18: Starrcade 2000
34 Plays5 years ago
It's the 18th Starrcade...and the last. World Championship Wrestling's first ever supercard comes to a close, a few months before the end of the company itself. Will Starrcade end with a bang, or a whimper? Will Goldberg best Luger and keep his new streak and existing career alive? Which tag team will win a #1 contender's match for a singles title? Just what is the difference between a Street Fight and a Bunkhouse Match, anyway? And what noble figure approaches through that shining portal in the distance, here to rescue us all? For all this and more, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Storyline, uh, not going forward. If only I could skip this mat. No. No, you can't skip it. No. Storyline in for this one? Yes.
Podcast Overview
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by wrestling mafia boss, Alfredo Pridgen. How ya doin'? And the master of the nerf bat, John Mullins. Oof. How's it goin' tonight, guys? Very good, how about you? Ah, doin' okay. It only took, what, 18 episodes for one of you guys to ask me that in return. I'm touched.
00:01:05
Speaker
So I shouldn't ask you that as well. You can do that. I would feel nice. Are you still doing good? I am still doing good, actually, yes. Good. Consistency is important. That is good, yeah. I didn't stab in between when I asked the question and when you asked the question. I know it was hard to resist the temptation. It really was. Tonight we're taking a look at Starrcade 2000.
Starrcade 2000 Overview
00:01:27
Speaker
Unedited. Unpredictable. Unreal. Our final Starrcade.
00:01:34
Speaker
Starrcade 2000 was held on December 17, 2000 at the MCI Center in Washington DC in front of 6,596 fans. That's 2,465 paid. Ow. Yeah. Again, this is the same exact building that WCW was in in 1999 with over 11,000 people.
00:01:59
Speaker
in 1998 with over 16,000 people and in 1997 with over 17,000 people. We're down nearly 11,000 people between 1997 and 2000 in the same building.
00:02:14
Speaker
So basically, if you could demo double the audience of 99, 2000, that would equal 97, then? 6 and 11, basically? Yes, yeah. If you added them together, you get back to what they were in 97, yeah.
Audience Decline
00:02:28
Speaker
So you're saying they all have good seats. I guess you could probably have whatever seat you wanted. But yeah, there's a lot of empty space this year, and try as WCW-Myther was just no real hiding it.
00:02:39
Speaker
I think it basically amounts to no one's in the cheap seats in the back because there's plenty more front. Move them up front to run the car. Yeah. Yeah. I did notice when they were walking around a ring side, there was like a much bigger gap between the railing and the ring because I guess they didn't have like ground seats or something. Yeah. Well, I mean, Scott's tired in this show. You don't want to be that close to Scott's side. That is a good point, yes.
00:03:05
Speaker
Also, Starrcade 2000 received about 45,000 pay-per-view buys. That's about a third of last year's 120,000, a tenth of 1998's 450,000, and just about 7% of 1997's 650,000.
Financial Difficulties
00:03:25
Speaker
45,000. The only Starrcade that did worse was Starrcade 87 with its 16,500. But that one can blame Vince McMahon's hardball tactics in creating the first Survivor Series to run directly against it.
00:03:41
Speaker
Last year WCW was at least about at its old levels. This year it's clearly in decline. 2000 has been a very, very bad year for the company. Oh yeah. All but a single pay-per-view spring stampede 2000 got less than a hundred thousand buys. WCW lost over $60 million in the year 2000.
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah. Quite a bit. It hits hard, doesn't it? Yeah. It's not hard to see why this is the last arcade. Yeah.
00:04:20
Speaker
Since 1996, Turner Broadcasting has been a part of Time Warner, but wrestling fan Ted Turner maintained quite a bit of control and supported WCW even as it declined. Now, however, Time Warner is merging with AOL, and with Turner losing his influence and the executives of the soon to be merged company not too thrilled with WCW from a content or losing loads of money perspective, the writing appears to be on the wall for WCW.
00:04:49
Speaker
In fact, a certain W Acquisition Company is currently in negotiations about acquiring WCW from AOL Time Warner. What is W Acquisition Company, you ask? Well, that would be a company formed for the express purpose of buying WCW by the WWF's Vince McMahon.
00:05:08
Speaker
But there may be a rescuer on the horizon in the form of fuscient media ventures, or however the heck you say that, who are working with former WCW head Eric Bischoff to acquire the company as well.
Critique of Opening Video
00:05:21
Speaker
Will WCW end up in the hands of its arch enemy or its former boss? But all that is in the future. For now, we've got a show to discuss. Let's go to the ring. Ding.
00:05:34
Speaker
The WCW logo ominously glares at us to start the show, and we get an opening video package. Like last year, it's just an assembly of video clips that don't do a lot to tell us about the stories, other than that certain people are fighting certain other people. It has clips to set up most of the matches we'll have, but largely focuses on three of them. The Insiders, DDP and Kevin Nash challenging the perfect event, Sean Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo for the tag titles.
00:06:00
Speaker
Lex Luger versus Goldberg, with Goldberg's career on the line, I guess. Yes. And Sid Vicious challenging Scott Steiner for the world title. We get some text again, but it's less strange and more generic this year. Alliances will form. Titles will change. Power will shift. Stars will rise. Champions will fall. So it's any wrestling show ever then? Good to know.
00:06:28
Speaker
One, where are the tiles going to change into? Seagulls. Oh, okay. Yeah. At least they're consistent with that. Yeah, Magnum TA has been training them. There you go. Gold Seagulls? There you go. Yeah, gold Seagulls, exactly. That's good, John.
Logo and Pyro Discussion
00:06:45
Speaker
I do like this year's Starrcade logo. It's very sleek and it doesn't include the horrible WCW logo, so two points in its favor. Although I did love the image you posted. Yes, I improved the logo. Two arm wrestling hands in the middle of it. That was good. That is, in fact, the epic handshake between Schwarzenegger and his friend in Predator. Oh, okay. When they bro-lock in the middle. There you go. There you go. I've seen the most appropriate one for that.
00:07:14
Speaker
We get a massive pyro display with fireworks going off all over the place for an extended period of time, and I think I know where a sizable portion of that $60 million loss came from. Host Tony Schiavone pokes fun at the 2000 presidential election and welcomes us to the show, introducing his co-host, Scott Hudson, and, quote, the best-looking big man in all of pay-per-view, Mark Madden. I think Butterbean hasn't beat just immediately. And that is not a high bar.
00:08:04
Speaker
So our first match is SugarShane
Six-Man Ladder Match Analysis
00:08:06
Speaker
No offense, Butterbean. Please don't hit me.
00:08:06
Speaker
Helms and Shannon Moore of Three Count, Jamie Noble and Evan Courageous of Noble and Courageous, and Jimmy Yang and Kaz Hayashi of the Young Dragons with Lea Miao, in a six-man ladder match to determine the number one contender to the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. The referee for this match is Jamie Tucker. And yes, weirdly, this is a match featuring three tag teams, but it's every man for himself because it's for the number one contendership to a singles title.
00:08:34
Speaker
Mm-hmm. There's been a long-running story going between the three groups. Originally, it was two groups. It was three count, less the name makes more sense with, you know, three people. Mm-hmm. And the Young Dragons, just for the record, spelled J-U-N-G as a pun. Yes. Anyhow, there was three of them. However, they did a split story with both of them where one of the members left each group.
00:09:03
Speaker
So we had Evan courageous of the great match from last year's arcade. Kicked out of the group for being too grandstanding. Too courageous. Too himself. And Jamie-san has his actual name kicked out because they learned he's actually not a Japanese guy at all. A white guy from, I think I want to say Kentucky, wearing a mask.
00:09:25
Speaker
It can be a surprise to them, right? Like they caught them before the mask on one day. Yeah, I guess so. Makes as much sense to anything else here. But yeah, so they each of them are split off unless they form the team of Noble Courageous, who we see now. As far as them fighting with the Cruiserweight title, it's basically the case of they're really not from the title that much, to be honest with you. It basically sat on Mike Sanders' waist for a while, doing nothing.
00:09:54
Speaker
before they decided to revamp Chavo, thankfully moving him from the Misfits in action, making him heal, although that's like two weeks earlier than this show. Okay. This is like a triple tag team thing? Yeah. It's a triple tag team thing at the moment, except that they're all fighting for themselves.
00:10:15
Speaker
Which isn't confusing at all. It makes it less confusing. Earlier, when there were still two teams, they had a three and three ladder match where they had two different objectives in the same match. Oh my gosh. That's a different thing we'll cover at some point. Okay. So there's a three count versus young dragon's ladder match and a three count versus normal courageous versus young dragon's ladder match as well. Which are the exact same matches basically? Yes. Yeah. Oh boy.
00:10:44
Speaker
Before the competitors come out, Cruiserweight Champion Chavo Guerrero Jr. makes his entrance and joins the announced team.
00:11:26
Speaker
One, two product placement.
00:11:31
Speaker
Three Count may be the best thing to come out of WCW in 2000. I realize that's a low bar, but come on. They're a wrestling boy band with a theme song that's them singing about how they like boy bands and Britney Spears. It's so ridiculous it turns around to become great. Kind of does. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's nowhere near the great earlier bonkers WCW theme songs like Man Called Sting. But this is WCW 2000. I'll take what I can get. It's no natural.
00:11:59
Speaker
I do have to note, though, that their original theme was even better by being even worse. Total generic boy band song here. Oh, boy. I can't get you out of my heart. I knew we were in trouble right from the start. Now I can't get you out of my heart.
00:12:27
Speaker
Nice dancing, John. You really probably should have been in a boy band at some point. Only in my dreams. I mean, I dance in my sleep is what they even do. They even do like the little echoey fades on the. Yeah, that was that was such a big thing with all those songs. Oh, my gosh.
00:12:48
Speaker
The Young Dragons manager, Lea Meow, actually first showed up last year as the cheerleader who led the varsity club out to the ring. Now she's dressed in what looks kind of like dominatrix gear and has a riding crop. I think I'm just going to leave that alone. Jimmy Yang has amazing massive sideburns. Oh yeah. Holy crap. Those are awesome. They are great.
00:13:12
Speaker
It's just like, wait right down. Oh my gosh. They return too quickly then like slash you across the face. Yes, yeah. Chavo actually does a really nice job helping to build up the teams a bit during the entrances as everyone walks around the array of ladders on the entrance ramp. He's actually quite a strong commentator I think during this match. I was pretty impressed by him.
00:13:35
Speaker
We start with just Shannon Moore and Kaz Hayashi in the ring, and everyone else on the apron like this is a tag match. Moore and Hayashi trade quick holds and do some acrobatics until Hayashi nearly lands on his skull on a botched overhead throw, and they both understandably take a few moments to recover. Hayashi's okay, and he gets a cool Hurricanrana counter to an arm bar, but they get a little bit muddled on a flippy arm drag spot by Moore.
00:14:02
Speaker
Courageous blocks more from getting to the ladders, and we get tags to Yang and Helms. Helms doesn't look too eager, but Helms brilliantly double fakes out Yang and everyone else, getting them to run for the ladders and fight while he and Moore retrieve their own ladder from under the ring and climb. That was pretty awesome.
00:14:19
Speaker
They're stopped by the young dragons, who are then stopped by Noble and Courageous, but Yang dropped Kiss the Ladder into the two, and the camera mostly misses Hayashi hitting a springboard moonsault onto the ladder atop Noble and Courageous. It's weird because because of the height, the fact that the camera's not pointing him while he's doing the jump, it's like he falls out of the sky into the shot, which is kind of cool, probably by accident I think in this case.
00:14:44
Speaker
That's a bit too much to hope that in 18 Star Cades, WCW would have learned to point its cameras in the right spot, I guess. Not the most egregious example we'll have tonight, but not true.
00:14:54
Speaker
The tag rules are out the window now, and Helms brings in another ladder, but quickly gets sent face-first into it. Hayashi invites Noble and Courageous and takes another apparently botched throw that looks like he either hit the ladder or the nearby mat face-first. Poor guy. If I remember that incorrectly, it feels like the guy's only dropping him wanted to do the Flapjack movie and fall flat on it.
00:15:16
Speaker
And looks like he did not want to do that, which I don't blame him if that's the case. Yeah. So it's kind of hard because they're clearly pulling him that way and he tries to stop himself. Yeah. Smooth transitions are the challenge. They're not really fighting each other. They're just fighting their own inability to pull things off. The true enemy is yourself.
00:15:37
Speaker
Noble and courageous fight over who gets to grab the contract, as only one person can be number one contender. Yang gets a beautiful dropkick to knock both down and gets to showcase a lot of his strikes and throws, leading to an amazing spinning moonsault off a ladder propped across the ropes. That was pretty good. Chavo says WCW has the best cruiserweights in the world, but Chavo is the best of them. Nice way to build them up and simultaneously build yourself up. Yeah, there you go.
00:16:04
Speaker
Helms throws Yang out of the ring, and everybody takes turns diving out on everybody else, except for smartest man in pro wrestling, Jamie Noble, who just climbs the ladder to try to win. But Yang spots him and shoves the ladder over to dump him out on the rest anyway. Yang takes some time setting a ladder up too far from the envelope to grab it, and props another ladder horizontally against it and against the ropes.
00:16:24
Speaker
So everybody hits moves off the horizontal ladder until Yang and Moore decide to set the ladders up next to each other instead. Yang, Moore, Helms, and Noble climb up. Noble and Moore take Helms and Yang down with a sunset flip and sleeper slam respectively. Noble tries to climb again, but LeaMiao attacks him, so Courageous rescues him. But Yang and Hayashi take down Courageous with a double team powerbomb where Hayashi, if I'm honest, really didn't seem to do anything.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah. Kind of just like, I'll touch you while the other guy's doing the move himself. A bit, yeah. Teamwork. Yeah. The dragons use all four ladders to set up a big scaffold structure instead of just setting the biggest ladder in the middle and winning the match. Three count, fling the dragons into the central ladder and nearly knock the whole thing down. Bob, you need them together because it's more stable. Yeah. That 10 seconds before then you're like... Yes, yeah.
00:17:16
Speaker
They did at least I saw the second time that they fling one of them into the ladders. I think it's Helms thoughtfully grabs the ladders to stop it from falling over. Everybody climbs up and goes flying off and we get an amazing spot as Yang and Helms fight on the ladder and more skins the cat up the scaffold to head Scissor Yang down, then skins the cat right back up. Really awesome spot there.
00:17:43
Speaker
Helms deals with Noble and Helms and more end up on the scaffold and shake hands and reach up to take the contract down together, which apparently counts. Three count are your number one contender singular. Chavo says he's going to talk to his lawyer, but the ref is apparently fine with it. Thoughts on this match?
Positives and Negatives of the Match
00:18:04
Speaker
Positives on it are...
00:18:07
Speaker
When they do their big spots, they tend to hit them really well. Their dives are really impressive. Their flips are really nice. For the most part, when they do the big setup spots, like Skinda Capri mentioned, or the bit where Mor runs across the pressed-out ladder and jumps onto the guy, they tend to work really well.
00:18:28
Speaker
The problems, of course, as you highlighted, are, one, a couple of spots nearly go really horribly wry, but yours gets the one where I'm pretty sure the guy just didn't want to take a flap deck onto a ladder, which, again, I totally get. The other I'm still confused about, I watched it a couple of times, the first one with Mor and Hayashi, who I'm also going to repeat just because I feel bad for him. I'm going to take all the most dangerous spots on this show. I'm like, man, next match you have, I'm sure is much safer.
00:18:55
Speaker
My best guess on that one is like they were gonna do an overhead throw, but then they were actually next to the ropes. Maybe. So one's all the way over and then you're pulling them down suddenly, it's hard to say. Yeah. But then things you kind of have to see and go, I'm not sure what happened there. Something goes wrong. Miss rhymed or miscommunication of what they were doing, something goes wrong. Yeah. And thankfully everybody lives. Yes. And as you sort of hinted at, there's a weird logic to this match where they want to set up ladders and odd positions.
00:19:24
Speaker
just so we can do moves, even though yeah, it would be clearly much easier to just set a ladder up and try to win with that. Which as we sort of hit to that with the previous year's show, we had the 1-1 ladder match. There's none of that because there's no extra person or persons there. So you have to do that stuff. You do a straight one-on-one.
00:19:43
Speaker
I think this gives us a pretty good example of the problems we were talking about last year with the complex ladder matches. There's just no real reason for the ladders to be set up in the manner that they're set up at times. They just need them that way for a series of spots. I will say just sort of conditionally with this match though, I think some of that is their general lack of experience combined with their excitement to do these big spots. Yeah, fair enough on that.
00:20:07
Speaker
Because if you watch TLC matches from this period with the other Hardee's at DeChristian, the other boys, there's a little of that, like putting tables in the right spot before you climb a ladder, then you get slammed through it. I feel like there's less seams to it in those ones. Oh yeah, absolutely. I could see it being a lack of experience thing to some extent. It's just, this is kind of the issue that comes up with the multi-man ladder matches that we were talking about the previous year. I think, yeah, just a little more evident in this one because of that factor. Yeah, I can see that.
00:20:38
Speaker
And of course, the finish is very strange because they started as a tag team affair, quickly abandoned that, and then all goes back to a tag team victory. Yeah. So I like the match a lot. It's definitely conditions to how you can like it. But as far as the pure assignment factor, it's a good opener in that regard. I can sum it up in three words. Okay. Energy. All right. Synergy.
00:21:08
Speaker
profit. This was an insane match just for the sheer amount of ladders that were utilized. There was a lot of hiccups in the very beginning. It was really hard for me to get into it. And, you know, until they did some nice interesting jumps where they had the ladder pinned in between the ropes on one of the turnbuckles, I thought that was funny.
00:21:34
Speaker
And after that, I was like, all right, well, maybe they're going to do some unique things. And then there was just a couple of flubs here and there and the camera angles were not helping. Or were they? I don't really know if they were because we probably would have missed a couple other things. I did like the random person appearing out of thin air. I was really impressed with the young dragons and three count. I don't know if we needed the third.
00:22:00
Speaker
pair, but, you know, with the storyline, I could see why they have six people in the ring. It was all over the place. I always like a energetic start, but it seemed like there was just a lot of chaos. I was surprised when I'm like, wait, they're not partners. When they're first going for it, I'm like, well, I thought they were just going to have, you know, like you take it. And I thought that would have been nice.
00:22:25
Speaker
There's one part, I think it is Yang, where he does a roll and then like does this hand motion. Yeah, yeah, does the rapid punches. But he's like two feet from him. Yes. Yes.
00:22:38
Speaker
That is probably the most fictional thing that we've seen in wrestling yet. And what's funny is I'm sitting here the whole time like, this is the last arcade. I can see why. I laughed really hard at that. That was the best part of the match for me, honestly. Yeah, it was pretty funny.
Three Count's Victory Discussion
00:22:55
Speaker
They're really like over the top way that I forget who he's doing that to but I think it's more it might be more Yeah, he like does the double punch at the end of it And he just like visibly throws himself back up onto the ladder on the corner. Oh, yeah, that's the funniest thing It's like they did the effect in reverse and just played it forward. Yeah. Yeah, he hops off the ladder of them Yeah, yeah, it looks like that Well, it was it was it was interesting and
00:23:22
Speaker
I did enjoy some of the moonsaults. The moonsault with the twist was kind of nice. I thought that was like a really high risk, high reward kind of move, even if it doesn't actually hurt the person, but it looks pretty deadly. Apparently I was losing it at this point because I wasn't certain on the wind conditions here. And I'm like, there's a short pinfall. They're like, no, I guess there isn't.
00:23:48
Speaker
I knew there was going to be some sort of fallout on the three count wins, but I think that if they didn't resolve it here in Starrcade, I think it would be a good storyline to continue. So I think that's why they did it. Yeah. Try to keep people interested in that storyline.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, that I found pretty interesting too actually. It doesn't really make sense that that's allowed to be a win, but at the same time it is kind of intriguing. They offer each of them half a contract. You both work for half.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah, once we were past the weird tag opening, this was an assembly of absolutely amazing spots that was unfortunately held together by setup for the sake of setup like we mentioned earlier. All the spots are incredible once they happen, it's just that the setup for them feels fake and it makes it clear that you're just watching a stunt show, not a competition.
00:24:40
Speaker
But I don't want to sound too down on this match. Despite some very visible flaws in the form of the setup and the botches and such, it was still a good and very fun opener with some absolutely incredible stunts. Just like you guys were saying, probably less experienced guys trying to put together a match. And I think you called it out. You can see the seams. Yes. A match like this will never be as high on my list as a singles ladder match because of that setup stuff. But it's still very fun to watch.
00:25:10
Speaker
I was thinking it's a little ironic too that the ending turns into briefly a sort of scaffold match. Yes. But even that, I think that brief bit of the men's scaffolds is more attending than either scaffold match. Yes, I will agree on that. And I'm sure Jim Kranert likes it better as well. Usually that formation only has three ladders for like painting and stuff. Yeah. I don't know. It would have been cooler if they took two and then made like long ramps that they could all run in to the center. There you go. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:40
Speaker
No one jumped with a ladder in their hands, which I was disappointed about. They could have done a moonsault wall holding a ladder, but they, they got it built to something, John. Yeah. I will say I have seen that spot actually. And one of the later, I think it's a money in the bank ladder matches. John Morrison has a smaller ladder and does, does a moonsault dive the outside with the, in his hands. Crazy. That's bonkers. Yeah. So someone did actually do that. They didn't do any advertising. I thought they would like working from Warner or, you know. Yeah.
00:26:10
Speaker
Well, I'm not sure these ladders were quite as good as the ladder from last year's show though. The ladder from last year's show looked really solid. Yes. The set looked a little more like the usual wrestling ladders. The cheaper ones you buy for 10 bucks in a six pack.
00:26:27
Speaker
The fallout to this is actually pretty immediate on Nitro. They open Nitro literally the very next day and say that, to determine who the number contender is, they're gonna have a match between Shannon Moore and Shane Helms, which opens the show, in fact. It goes back and forth, it's actually a really good match. And fortunately for Bob, I mention this because Shane Helms wins by debuting his new finisher, the Vertebreaker.
00:26:52
Speaker
Aww, I missed the Verder Breaker by one day? Yes. Aww. I know. It is a terrifying-looking wrestling move, but a really cool-looking wrestling move at the same time. Yeah. And it ends up in his theme song in the early next year. Oh, yeah. He has the Verder Breaker rap song as his theme. It's yet another so cheesy, it's awesome song. The follow-up of this is setting up Shane Helms to go after Chavo over a long-running story of the champion.
00:27:22
Speaker
Did WCW ever cut a record for the full versions of intro songs? Yeah, I, in fact, have a CD of WCW Themes. Though, oddly, some of them on there are not actually complete. Some of them, it gives you 30 seconds and then fades out. I'm like, this is your CD of songs? What the heck? Yeah. But then other ones, it'll do the full thing. Yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
Whereas WWEF slash WWE has done like 10 or 12 with us. Yeah. Yeah. They've been going back and done re-releases of older themes as like retro releases. Yeah. See? They're on the ball. They need to do a few WCW albums. Yeah. I would expect WCW to do something like on Phillip's laser disc or... Oh man. There you go. I need Starkey, Knife 99 laser disc. That'll complete my collection. Yes. Why do I have this?
Backstage Promos and Match Changes
00:28:13
Speaker
Backstage, Jim Duggan polishes his lumber, that's not a euphemism, and Lance Storm comes in to chat. The sound hopefully actually decides to join the party a few moments later. Duggan had been a part of Storm's Team Canada, but left. Storm says that when Duggan joined Team Canada, it was for the long haul, and that the American fans won't take Duggan back now, so if Duggan wants a career, it's with Team Canada. He hands Duggan a Canadian flag and tells him to think it over.
00:28:42
Speaker
Duggan sits there looking distressed. I did actually think that was pretty terrific acting from Duggan here. He looks like a man really struggling with this situation. Yeah, not bad.
00:28:54
Speaker
We go back to a door with a WCW Commissioner sign, this time not crossed out for David Flair, and Jeff Jarrett meets with Commissioner Mike Sanders to tell him that he'd like to change the upcoming match with himself and the Harris Brothers, formerly Creative Control, versus the filthy animals from a street fight to a bunkhouse match. Which is pretty much a street fight, just, I don't know, maybe with different weapons. Yeah, it's got a wheelbarrow in it, that's something. Yeah. New bunks though, I thought they'd have, like, bunk beds. They'd have the bunks, yeah. Yeah.
00:29:25
Speaker
Sanders says the match has already been advertised as a street fight, which seems like a fair argument, especially since the show has already started, but Jared doesn't care. Jared compromises though and says they can do both, so Sanders agrees. I don't know about you guys, but I'm looking forward to our combination street fight and slightly different street fight match. Maybe they can make it no disqualification and no holds barred too, or maybe anything goes as well. Just to really change things up. Absolutely.
00:29:53
Speaker
By the way, for me anyway, Mike Sanders looked uncannily like Chris Pratt. Yeah. I can kind of see that. I think I can see that. 2000, that's not really a compliment, but 2020, that is definitely a compliment for him. Yeah. Briefly, Mike Sanders is one regret I had with his character. So they put him in charge of the... Misfits in action. Well, no, no, no. The big Colonel Sanders. You ruin all my setup, Bob. Yes, I do.
00:30:21
Speaker
You're not. You're not fun. We cut to chronic. That's Brian Adams, formerly of Weird Facial Hair Arrows, and Brian Clark, formerly of Poorly Taking Vader Splashes, in a sauna, thankfully with well-placed towels. Clark is on the phone and says that if someone shows up with the cash, they'll do the job. He hangs up and tells Adams that they'll get the cash as soon as the job's done. Adams says Clark knows their policy.
00:30:48
Speaker
Clark says yes in almost exactly the manner of one who has no idea what their policy is, and Adams clarifies that their policy is cash up front. Adams says, though, that they can make an exception because this job is special. Good thing since Clark already agreed. Cutting negotiators, these two are not. Yes. Adams says he's baked as we cut. Okay.
00:31:13
Speaker
To be fair, they are chronics, but with 2Ks. Yes. Both of which are capitalized by the way. Oh yeah, of course. Back to the ring for our second match. So our second match is Lance Storm with prime-time Elex Skipper and Major Guns, Team Canada, versus Ernest the Cat Miller with Mrs. Jones. Referee for this match is Mark Slick Johnson.
00:31:41
Speaker
At the previous show, Lance Dorm had been trying to win the US title back from General Rexion. He was using Team Canada to help get an advantage from the match, so to even things out, Ernest Miller came out and interfered, helping costume the match, so he was going to win the US title back. And the condition for their match was that it'd be the final match between them, no matter what happened. So now Lance Dorm is out of contention for the title, which he's really mad about.
00:32:07
Speaker
And as mentioned in the previous promo, Hacksaw was having second thought of being a part of the group, with another factor in this as well. Team Canada comes down to the Canadian national anthem. Storm grabs a microphone and asks to be serious for a minute, demanding our respectful attention. He makes fun of how long it took to resolve the 2000 presidential election, and says that the world's laughing at us. He says Team Canada stands as one, and they're going to win. He requests everyone rise for Canada's national anthem.
00:32:36
Speaker
We never really found a good foreign heel replacement for Russia after the Cold War, did we? No. Canada? Really? Who hates Canada? South Park, I guess. I guess. Canadians. No, no. It's hard to hate Canada. Kat's theme interrupts the anthem, and Storm's double take almost makes up for how horrid Kat's James Brown rip-off theme actually is. It sounds like Mitty. Yeah, it really does.
00:33:06
Speaker
Cat has bright red shoes on. Cat blessedly cuts his music off fast and says that he's going to represent the USA and kick Storm's butt and send Mark Madden back to Canada with him. Did he just become the biggest face on the show for you, Al? Absolutely. I can't really get through what he does after this.
00:33:25
Speaker
Cat goes to dance, but we miss most of that because we cut to a lady in the crowd holding a sign saying that she came to see the cat dance. I think that speaks for itself. I think it had shoes on it too. Yeah, I think so. Which was nice. Just like, come on. Yeah. No, I can only hope that because the camera was pointing out that you couldn't actually see him dance. That would be hilarious. We need a third camera for this shot. Then pan over and see, show the camera and verify he's blocking your view.
00:33:58
Speaker
Kat takes off his red shoes and Storm hesitantly gets into the ring as Kat leads the crowd in the USA chant. Kat dominates early with kicks and chops as Madden calls his karate phony and his tournament wins legitimate in the span of a few sentences. My brain hurts.
00:34:14
Speaker
Major Guns grabs Cat's foot on a whip to distract him and Cat confronts her. Everyone argues outside, until Guns and Jones get in the ring, but Storm breaks that up before a fight can start. Madden keeps making horrible comments that I won't repeat.
00:34:29
Speaker
Storm attacks Cat from behind while Jones and guns are leaving and dominates with strikes and a jawbreaker, but when he pauses to taunt the crowd before a suplex, Cat rolls him up for two, so Storm clotheslines Cat right back down for two. Side headlock and Cat draws power from USA Chance to fight back, and they go back and forth until Cat hits what Tony calls an undercut, which, yes, is actually a legitimate martial arts term, and sends Storm skyward and hits a sidekick to the crotch. Ow.
00:34:57
Speaker
Eliks Skipper hits Kat from the apron to help Storm, and Johnson sees it but doesn't call for a DQ because what are rules anyway? Who cares? He does at least lecture Storm. Skipper beats Kat up outside, but Kat fights back against Skipper and Storm. Johnson comes over for more lecturing, but Storm ducks a kick from Jones and it hits Johnson, knocking him dazed. He still refuses to act unconscious. Jones wins. It's over.
00:35:25
Speaker
Jones wins a fight with guns by sending her to the barricade.
00:35:28
Speaker
Tony wants them to cut over and look at her laying on the ground. Yeah, he's like, oh, look at the hips. And then they look away, and then they've had a way. And then when they finally cut over, he's like, oh, thanks for that. Is Lois watching this show? Yeah. Come on, Tony. Well, I guess, well, no one's watching this show but us, I guess. Clearly, a number has panned that out. Yeah, yeah. Bad Tony, don't bow to peer pressure. Yes. Back in, Storm does a really nice missile drop kick for zero as there's no ref.
00:35:57
Speaker
which he probably should have known since he was there when the ref got knocked unconscious. Yeah, you think. Johnson recovers as Kat comes back with a nice kick combo for two, but Storm gets a great Northern Lights suplex for two. Kat flails wildly on a Storm waistlock as a distraught Jim Duggan comes to ringside. Storm sunset flip, but Kat punches free, but Duggan enters the ring behind him. He considers his 2x4, but drops it, and just clotheslines Kat from behind.
00:36:26
Speaker
tremendous booze for that, especially considering how few people are actually in the crowd. It was very audible. Storm puts on the single leg crab hold and immediately taps out, giving Storm the win. The flow with the really weak looking clothesline, if I'm being honest, to Storm rolling through his leg lock is not as smooth as I've seen him do the leg lock before. I've seen him roll through X1s running at him.
00:36:53
Speaker
A still uncertain Duggan joins Team Canada in the ring, and Storm and Guns raise Duggan's hands. Guns takes the 2x4, and Storm nails Duggan from behind. Team Canada beats Duggan down as it looks like Cat is being helped to the back, but suddenly Cat just shows up in the ring and drives off Team Canada, including flinging Storm over the ropes. Cat puts on one of his red shoes and looks ready to kick Duggan, but Duggan just leaves the ring, and Cat makes a kind of, he's not worth it gesture.
00:37:23
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? No, I was surprised to see Hacksaw Mark Hamill come and one shot him from behind. I have in my notes, with one red shoe, our hero retreats, realizing that we are all Americans.
00:37:43
Speaker
But it seems like there's some invisible checklist to check off, and then they all just sort of walk off and don't like ever resolve any of the thing. It's like, we did this, we did that. It is a weird ending, isn't it? Yeah, it's, you know, in the whole like, get my shoe, kind of like ruin the gravitas. Yeah. I think it's supposed to be a loaded shoe, is it? I think, I guess. Maybe.
00:38:05
Speaker
It does feel weird in that last spot. I don't know if you guys felt the same thing, but it felt like maybe Duggan wasn't aware that there was supposed to be a spot with him being kicked. And so he leaves and Cat has to improvise, oh, he's not worth it or something. Or Cat was improvising the spot and Duggan just didn't notice him or something like that. I don't know. It just felt like Cat is clearly expecting to actually kick him. And Duggan just walks off.
00:38:32
Speaker
Doesn't even like look at him. No cuz he's not yeah cuz he doesn't ever seem to actually look his way Yeah, so I could see it being looked legitimately. He didn't actually realize it was happening Yeah, it looks down. It's what I remember first watching the match together. I was counting I think I was actually good how mo was actually selling his leg being helped out and
00:38:51
Speaker
And then 10 seconds later, he runs in the ring and starts kicking. He's like, never mind. Yeah. Hadn't then lost it. Yep. Yep. Maybe he's like, you know what? I came in to save him from being beaten up. Why do anything else?
00:39:04
Speaker
I was like, all right, well, it wasn't the ending I expected, but it did make me think about it a little bit. Did we have Russ Miller on the last year's show? We had him on 98, I think. Yeah, 98, I know, for sure. It wasn't on 99. Because 98, he had flourishes of good bits in there. He had the great slide just too short to attack. Yeah, it was funny, yeah.
00:39:24
Speaker
What I felt was missing in that match was the middle parts of every section. There's no flow from spot to spot. Even with Perry Saturn, who I think is a really good wrestler, he just couldn't quite pull it together. This is definitely a nice improvement on that, even if the match is full of constant interference and a very long ref bump and a lot of nonsense. When it's just a match, I thought it flowed really well. They seem to have a good chemistry.
00:39:49
Speaker
I know Storm up until literally very recently was running a wrestling academy so it's not hard to see him doing a sort of DDP thing helping people like Miller walk through a match really well.
00:40:02
Speaker
I would be curious to see Lawrence Miller match from just before this and see how they match up. Is there a difference between that for sure? Is it just that he's improved, or is it that he's working with a guy who's better about working with an inexperienced guy? It's probably 50-50 to be fair, but it'd be interesting to see that for comparison. I get a weird Kurt Angle vibe from Lance Storm. The original, his first season,
00:40:26
Speaker
Where he's very formal and respect me and the three eyes and yeah for this country and stuff So yeah, you know I saw him more of like a traditional wrestler a lot of boobs were clean and and simple But yeah effective
00:40:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's what Storm is generally known for is that, like you said, very clean, very crisp. Everything he does, he clearly knows exactly how to do it. As an opponent, you want to wrestle with him because there's no fear that he's not going to do the move correctly. Very safe. No flash, but again, no risk or less risk.
00:41:04
Speaker
Because he even does a nice springboard dropkick into the ring, which is really good. Yeah. But I watched him before trying to compare it to Shigeru Itani doing his dropkicks. Yeah, he's looked really good. Oh yeah, yeah. I do like the cat. I do love his Funkin' boxing. Honestly, they could have ended the thing after those undercuts and did that split punch. That's a good point to stop.
00:41:30
Speaker
Cause in the very beginning, I was like, when they're talking about the election stuff, I'm like, I elect not to watch this match. Lance has got a point. Let's go. But the whole thing, like that lady, I wanted to see the cat dance and every time he started doing, they cut away. No, there was a lot of unique stuff in this, a lot of memorable things for me. Well, definitely better than the first match in my opinion. Okay. All right.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was nothing exceptional, but fine. I think Storm did a really good job with his story here, showing how his aggravation at the crowd distracted him to get the cat openings. And Cat got to show off a variety of kicks this time and seemed a lot sharper in the ring than back in 1998.
00:42:13
Speaker
Definitely a confidence that he's yeah, he's put it together into an actual style. Yes now where before he was I've got a lot of character. I have a few kicks, but I don't really know how to meld it all together Yes in this match it all clicks as a consistent act. Yeah. Yeah
00:42:31
Speaker
Still, I felt like there wasn't a ton to this match, and there's no real build to Storm's leg hold finisher to make it make sense why Cat immediately gives up. True. That would make sense if Storm had spent the entire match brutalizing Cat's leg or something, but without it, it just doesn't really quite work that way.
00:42:49
Speaker
Duggan's storyline was genuinely interesting though, and All Concern performed that pretty well. Even if it makes for a bit of a screwy finish, I actually thought that it elevated the match a bit as they did a good job bringing out some more emotion from it. It would have been a little stronger if Kat didn't jump right back in though. Decent match, but if you're not gonna DQ people for obvious interference, why even have DQ rules? Yeah.
00:43:16
Speaker
This kind of weirdly boring with not anything exciting happening on the Knight of the Thunders as far as like tile changing and such. So the match to sin that Earth Miller has is him against Mike Sanders, or they'll call him Colonel Sanders since you were my joke.
00:43:33
Speaker
Anyway, where they're fighting for the commissioner position of WCW, in a fun little story of Fidnote, since we're on the last target anyways, the first person to appear as part of the invasion is a Vakkland Storm. He runs in a ring on a raw in Spirit Cakes, Perry Saturn. That's right, yeah. Okay. He's the first, I guess, invader or defector we want to say for the invasion. He's the sign of the coming storm. Yes.
00:44:03
Speaker
Backstage, an ambulance pulls up, and that 70s guy, Mike Awesome, steps out. Tony builds up Awesome's upcoming ambulance match against Bam Bam Bigelow, and we cut to... Buff Bagwell. I hope you didn't deserve this.
00:44:20
Speaker
Bagwell in Bowler Hat says that he's the new backstage interviewer because WCW wanted to draw a rating. He's on pay-per-view. Ratings are more of a nitro thing, man. Bagwell brings in the filthy animals, who he says dress so cool. The animals are Conan in leopard print, line coat, and cowboy hat, Kidman in generic black outfit, Tigris in white top and short shorts, and somebody's 12-year-old brother wearing what appears to be the torso of a Chewbacca cosplay.
00:44:50
Speaker
Pretty much, yeah. Ratings. Oh wait, that's an unmasked frame of stereo. Yes. He really is wearing a Chewbacca without the helmet. It's the fuzziest coat ever. It covers everything except his head and neck. I know. And it looks like two sizes too big for him. Yes. It really does. Oh my gosh. This promo's about 70% dirty jokes, so I'm not playing it.
00:45:14
Speaker
Bagwell basically cuts the animal's promo for them, talking about how Jarrett went to Sanders to get their upcoming match change, but not really. Kidman makes gay jokes, and Conan jokes about Jarrett's stroke meaning something other than connections with the boss.
00:45:28
Speaker
I thought this was a pretty bad segment, if I'm honest. Yeah. Do Dirty Jokes pass as promos now? Is that 2000s thing, I guess? Yeah. I guess that's the state of things. It ends really weird, too. It kind of looks like Ray wants to speak, but then Bagwell just slaps hands with him and Ray awkwardly walks off when it's clear that Bagwell's just throwing to the next bit. Yeah. Did it seem like that? It absolutely did. Yeah, it didn't feel like it ended where it posted you. Segue says what?
00:45:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's like Ray's like holding out his hand like hey hand me the microphone or bring the microphone to me and Bagwell's just like Slap hands with you. What's up, Ray? He's like fine. I'll walk off Yeah, I'll take my Chewbacca coat and leave
00:46:14
Speaker
It might have been cold. I don't know. Yeah. Good gosh. They may have spent all the money on the pyro and not on the heating or the backstage area. That would make sense. I was very surprised when they switched to the other people in the hallway. I was like, okay.
00:46:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very sudden transition then to Reno and Vito walking with their manager, Marie, when Sanders and the natural-born thrillers call out to him. It's extremely hard to understand anybody in the Echoey hallway, but I think Sanders is telling Reno that he can come back and join them, and Reno and Vito are telling him off.
00:46:48
Speaker
Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's a case of they're relying 100% on the audio from the camera, which is in front of Reno and Vito. But you put to here Sanders and the others like 10 feet away down the hallway. Yeah. And it's a super echoey hallway too. So, but there's no audio in your rail. So it's just one source and they're too far away from it. Yeah.
00:47:07
Speaker
We cut to wrestler Crowbar and his manager Daphne. Crowbar, who sadly is not to my knowledge David Flair's gold crowbar come to life, is wearing a 70s outfit akin to Mike Awesome's and is upset that Daphne doesn't want to do that. Daphne says something about the 70s gimmick being like a poop sandwich and making Crowbar soft. That might not be right. It took time to make out because her voice is in that pitch range that only dogs can actually hear. Yeah, she's going for a real like Betty Boop thing, which is confusing. Gosh.
00:47:38
Speaker
It sure does make the show seem real when the performers are talking openly about their gimmicks, doesn't it? Oh yeah. Crowbar says he's going to retain his title, keep his 70s clothes, and meet her to party later. Then he walks off and gets blasted in the face by a fire extinguisher wielded by Terry Funk. I will at least admit that Crowbar's 70s clothes look better than Funk's circus performer pants. Yeah, I've never seen that look ever. That's just how he dresses.
00:48:03
Speaker
Funk continues blasting Crowbar with the fire extinguisher and we hear a lot of sound clipping. I'm not sure if maybe Crowbar was wearing a microphone and the extinguisher was getting to it. Maybe. Daphne starts screaming at the top of her lungs and a referee arrives and I guess we're starting the match. So our third match is Crowbar with Daphne and Daphne's incessant screaming versus Terry Funk for Crowbar's WCW Hardcore Championship. The referee for this match is Scott James, formerly Scott Armstrong.
00:48:33
Speaker
He was previously a professional wrestler for WCW and is the brother of fellow wrestlers Steve, Brad, and Brian James. Steve and Brad, also going by Armstrong, appeared on Prior Starkades. Brian is the most famous as Road Dogg Jesse James in the WWF. Scott actually performed as a wrestler for WCW until March 2000, so he's quite new as a referee.
00:48:55
Speaker
Is the Armstrong James thing, is it like a Sheena's Devas thing? They just some Twitch to Sheen, some say just Devas? I guess so, yeah. Good thing they don't try to like, combine them. James Strong? Oh, now it's like, they're like Sheena's Devas. Oh, okay. Sheena's? There you go. Estachin. That sounds like a, I don't know, like a beauty treatment, doesn't it? Yeah. The Estachin.
00:49:23
Speaker
The Cobar 70s gimmick thing is just carried over from him being friends with Mike Awesome, and I guess being convinced to try it out, because we have to talk about people's gimmicks openly to escape his dad, I guess. Terry Funk very recently returned during a segment on, I think it was Thunder. Funk returned to reinvigorate the languishing hardcore division. If you need proof of that, one of the previous champions in the year 2000 was Eric Bischoff.
00:49:49
Speaker
Yeah, as you're wondering, Bischoff won the title and gave it to somebody, so he didn't lose it. Yeah. Who's surprised at that? No. Funk uses semi-trailers and other backstage stuff to beat Crowbar up, including sending him for a ride on an equipment box, which looked kind of fun, actually. Funk sets Crowbar on a semi-truck loading ramp and detaches it, dropping it, and Crowbar sells an injury to an arm that in no way could even remotely have been hurt by that.
00:50:15
Speaker
It's like, it's not under it or anything. It's just he falls and grabs the arm that wasn't even below his body. You're like, how did that hurt? I'm not sure. Magic arthritis. Yeah, there you go.
00:50:29
Speaker
Tony brings up Funk's multiple retirements, the first being in 1983, the year of the first Starrcade. Incidentally, Funk's most recent retirement was in 2016, but he actually had a match in 2017 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where I went to college. Oh. Terry Funk is really bad at retiring.
00:50:49
Speaker
I saw him at an indie show in the area, I want to say like 2003. It was him and Jerry Lawler and it felt really weird seeing that at that point. That was 13 years before that last retirement. I actually kind of like Terry Funk. Like I know some of his history with him and mankind. You learn a little bit about the guy behind his wrestling persona and he's got like a good heart and everything but he's just like a covert legend.
00:51:17
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah. It's not like he's like Flash or anything, but he's just like a mainstay. Yeah, absolutely. They fight inside a semi-trailer and Crowbar takes over with a car grill that's in there for some reason and beats Funk up. Daphne will not stop screaming. I was getting a headache watching this match. Oh yeah.
00:51:38
Speaker
Funk throws crowbar out of the trailer through a table, and if I were crowbar, I would've let unconsciouses take me to escape the noise, but he doesn't, so they continue fighting with his car door that's there for some reason. They trade off slamming each other's heads in a building door. Adorable. And crowbar... Adorable. And crowbar tries to handcuff Funk, but Funk gets them and cuffs crowbar instead. In the front, where their long chain basically leaves him totally mobile. 100%.
00:52:07
Speaker
Oh, the brutality, Tony says. But as Tony says, he's trying not to laugh. Crowbar forgets how his arms and hands work, so Funk beats him up with a chair and car door as they move towards the ring. Daphne keeps screaming. Funk puts Crowbar on a table, but Daphne rolls him back off, so Funk tries to choke her in a tremendously uncomfortable spot. A bit. Blessedly, Crowbar saves very quickly, getting Funk on the table and diving over the ropes on him. It gets two.
00:52:33
Speaker
Both are in the ring and Daphne chucks a chair at Funk and celebrates with the exact same screams that she's been making all match. Lexi Luger? Yeah, a little bit, yeah. It gets Crowbar too, but Funk nails Crowbar with the chair a few times and pile drives him on the car door for the three count, the win, and the title. Funk uses the ref to drag himself to his feet and walks out with his belt as Daphne helps Crowbar take off the handcuffs. Thoughts on this one? Ah, let's see, here's my summary. Cheershots!
00:53:02
Speaker
Screaming. Crowbar is too dumb to block. Three good spots.
00:53:08
Speaker
I don't remember which three spots they were even, honestly. I can at least appreciate the gimmickry of the pal driver on the car door, I guess maybe that was one. And he does a good, safe, but dangerous looking pal driver, to be fair. They've probably been doing pal divers probably at this point for 40 years. So yeah, hopefully he's good by now. Probably the second one is the dive out of the ring. That's proving how weak the handcuff thing was. If you can usually dive out of the ring using his hands.
00:53:34
Speaker
Maybe I have for the tease of the spot where I tell your function to fall out of the trailer all of like two feet backwards Yeah, maybe that's my three spots. That's about all I have I have to remember which ones they are That tells you how little you actually care. You just summarized it too. It's not like I haven't I haven't heard about it either Yeah, like you're asking me for the huge summarize here I thought you're gonna say that you like the part where crowbars like hit me some more Yeah
00:53:59
Speaker
You know, my problem with that whole thing is they're clearly trying to do the Royal Rumble 2000 match with Mick Foley and The Rock, which involved The Rock and come Mick Foley's hands behind his back. Yeah. Like a sane person would do. And then, of course, taking 12 unnecessary shots, but the sane person would not do. Yeah. And getting mercy from that, whereas it's just like, hey, look at Kuro, take some more shots at the head. If we were sort of laughing and not really bothered by it. Yeah.
00:54:30
Speaker
The screaming is definitely the worst part of the match for me, because you can't ignore it, because even if you look away, you hear it. The only way I could see it being excused is if the first, like, third half of the match, she kept doing that, and Terry Funk had some sort of line to her, like, you know, I'm half deaf, I can't hear you anyways, and then she stopped, but that didn't happen, so there's no payoff to her screaming, and she didn't stop screaming.
00:54:55
Speaker
So no, neither way could have possibly been okay at it. There's precisely one spot where it's kind of funny where she's been screaming and then she stops for a few moments and then we cut to a view of her up close and she notices the cameraman and screams in shock at noticing him that close to her. I was like, okay, that was funny, but it wasn't worth the entire rest of the match screaming at the top of her lungs.
00:55:18
Speaker
It's a lot of awkward fighting and tear shots and then they get in the ring. I'd like to like to dive out of the ring into the table. It's nice. But then it just goes back to Terry Funk. He's playing his pal Darrin winning. Yeah. Wasn't my favorite by far.
00:55:33
Speaker
Pretty energetic considering it's funk. Sure. I felt like this was a Halloween Horror Nights. Like a haunted loading dock. Like where people are just beating each other up in the background. And the screams in the background kind of give me that feel like you're waiting in line, you're approaching this fallout area or whatever the theme is that year.
00:55:54
Speaker
You hear people screaming in the background, and that's what I was getting from that. I actually turned the volume way down, just so it wasn't so jarring. The only thing that stood out was the chair hits. Yeah. I did like the prop direction. I'm surprised I didn't use all the mic cables and everything to really tie people up and do other things when they're inside the loading area. I did say audibly, we, when they were pushing them on the cart.
00:56:21
Speaker
I know that actually looked really entertaining. He doesn't push him into anything either. He just pushes him along and you're like, well, that looked fun. Yeah. Well, it's better than, I mean, I don't know if it's better is the word, but it reminded me of where they're just tearing apart the break area. Right, yeah, last year. Yeah, so I think they wanted to get a little bit of that, but we got a hallway shot. Then we got the loading docks. We're going all out this year. I had there with no giant surge display. Yeah. Like last year, I would have made better.
00:56:51
Speaker
But I thought T-Funk should win for the sheer fact he didn't bring anyone that was screaming. There you go.
00:56:59
Speaker
I definitely was getting a headache watching this match, but even without Daphne just constantly yelling in a way that I'm sure must have hurt her throat after a while, this was not that interesting to me. It just moves from contrived spot to contrived spot with conveniently placed prop after conveniently placed prop, some of which just have no business even being backstage at a wrestling show. Who just puts spare car doors in the arena?
00:57:24
Speaker
And why is a car's front grille sitting randomly in a semi-truck?
00:57:32
Speaker
But no storyline other than they were just mysteriously there. Why is this stuff here is a question that you really should answer. Had Crowbar trying to act like he was totally incapacitated by wearing handcuffs with such a long chain that they afforded him nearly complete range of motion. And this just started out ridiculous and got worse as it went on. It would have worked if he was cuffed behind his back, but not like this. No, it's like, I mean, I don't know what, probably a three foot chain, two foot chain or something. Could have jump rope with it. Yeah, basically. Yeah.
00:58:02
Speaker
At least they make Terry Funk pay for that, like, that he does choke him at one point. Yeah. So, you know, like, okay, there's a little retribution there. A combination of silly and boring, punctuated by ear-shattering screams. This one was not fun for me. Funk would defend the title in January at Sin, but it is January, so...
00:58:26
Speaker
Terry Funk loses the hardcore title to Ming. And then something really weird happens. Ming is not under contract at this point when he's maybe a hardcore champion. And who said there were a rumble, but Ming, under his old name is Haku.
00:58:42
Speaker
And no, he did not lose the title before he left. He just left. He apparently, he did an indie show and gave the title back to Barberi, who I think was still employed there at the time. They're like, here, I don't want this. Oh my gosh. So they lose their hardcore champion to the WWE at that point, which is notable because the WWE hardcore title is one of only three titles to my understanding that never appeared in WWEF. Hmm. Hmm.
00:59:07
Speaker
Yeah, that one didn't appear, the television title didn't appear, and a title we haven't seen yet, the WCW Cruiserweight tagging titles also never made to WWF. We go back to Mean Jean Okerlund, who is with Team Canada.
00:59:26
Speaker
Members of Team Canada, I am appalled. What the hell were you thinking attacking the great hacksaw Jim Duggan like you did out there moments ago? First of all, you tell this guy he's got a home in Team Canada, and then the next time he tries to help you, you sucker him. I think you've got to realize, Gene, a leopard can't change his spots. Once American, always American. I realized a month ago that Jim Duggan's days in Team Canada were numbered, and this business were numbered.
00:59:51
Speaker
We used him to get one last job done. He's nothing but a stupid, gullible American. But now that we've got rid of the trash, Team Canada can move forward, grow bigger and stronger. Mark my words, Gene. I'm from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Gene, don't blame Canada. Blame yourself. Gene follows that up with a dirty joke that I won't repeat. Yeah, that's good.
01:00:19
Speaker
Storm excellently conveys the Duggan story in mere moments and does a great job of getting across just how much he was manipulating the poor guy. Very efficient promo skills, Lance. Just, uh, fast forward as soon as he's done talking to avoid guns and Jean trying two different ways to utterly ruin a segment.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's hilarious hearing her horribly screw up the South Park movie line. Yeah, totally botches her joke. And thank you, that's your catchphrase. It's not the first time she's tried this. Oh, wow. This is how she ends the promo is multiple times. Hmm. It's just this time she just fully forgot the order the words go in. Oh, wow.
01:00:55
Speaker
Thank you for cutting at the time you did. I kind of groaned. Yeah, there was no way I was playing that. Oh, no. I thought it was very uncharacteristic of Mean Gene. Yeah, they basically do that to him in, like, 2000, I think becomes his new gimmick, unfortunately, that they're like, hey, Mean Gene will suddenly be a dirty old man. And you're like, where did this come from? There are hints of it earlier in his career, but it definitely is accentuated. It honestly would have been funnier if he said, get off my lawn. Yeah.
01:01:26
Speaker
So, Gene Oakland's a backstage interviewer, but he wasn't earlier when it was Buff Bagwell? Well, they got two of them, because it's just too much work. Sure, we'll go with that. We go to Lex Luger's room, where he's unpacking his bag of gear and produces a set of brass knuckles, for once not wrapped in tape. He says that Goldberg's next, not him. Tony notes that those brass knuckles will actually be legal in this match with Goldberg because it's a no disqualification match.
01:01:55
Speaker
It's actually a no-holds bard match, but I guess that's the same thing. Yeah. A no-holds bard match is no DQ now. Yes. Is hitting someone with a chair a hold? Yes, because you're holding the chair. I guess. We go back out to the ring for our next match. So our fourth match is Big Vito and Reno with Marie versus Chronic, Brian Adams and Brian Clark. Referee for this match is Jamie Tucker.
01:02:23
Speaker
Going into this point a couple months back, there have been a few between Big Vito and Reno because Reno had joined the natural born thrillers faction and was working with them. However, then a big soap opera plot revelation, which I think is a carryover from Russo storylines, happens where Reno is actually Big Vito's brother. Dun dun dun. The young and the wrestlers. Nice. Yes.
01:02:51
Speaker
That leads to Vito trying to make peace with them, so they're doing this storyline where they're trying to be a cohesive unit now that they're related by blood, but it's not clear if we know his tormentor and his loyalty is to get the group or him or not. Chronic, meanwhile, are just two hired goons, apparently.
01:03:07
Speaker
Knock off Godfather music leads Vito, Reno, and Marie to the ring. Chronic has generic rock. Adams grabs a microphone and says that Chronic is doing the job before being paid this time, but he expects to be paid in full as soon as they're done, asking if Marie understands, which implies that she was the one that hired them. What? Reno and Vito look at her and she says that she has no idea what Adams is talking about. I noticed at this point, referee Jamie Tucker kind of looks like William H. Macy.
01:03:37
Speaker
Chronic attack Vito and Reno from behind, and throw Vito out of the ring so they can beat up Reno. Vito back in to save, and Reno dropkicks Adams out of the ring so he and Vito can trade off against Clark as tag rules impose themselves. Vito gets a two count off a nice power slam and leg drop, and Reno off a kick and a Vito neckbreaker, but Clark counters Vito's arm wavy strikes with an underhook suplex for two. Meanwhile, Adams talks to Maria, and she maintains that she's not their client.
01:04:06
Speaker
Vito comes out to attack him, but he grabs Vito and holds him for a Clark, flipping Sentin off the apron.
01:04:13
Speaker
Really awkward, overcomplicated Russian leg sweep into the barricade by Clark on Vito. Just like, just throw him into it. That's easier. Clark batters Vito with a chair, which is apparently totally fine with the referee, but Reno coming over to stop it is apparently not fine, and the ref warns him to go back to his corner. Repeatedly. Which rules matter? Back in, we get a weird peck hold by Adams.
01:04:40
Speaker
but Vito punches free and fights back until a double shoulder block by both chronic guys takes him down. The natural-born thrillers, led by Sanders, come out on the ramp to watch as chronic trade-off beating him up and cut off his attempts to tag. There's a nice sequence of dodges and counters that leads up to a double big boot to Vito, but then a really clumsy spot where Clark and Vito simultaneously try to flying body press each other.
01:05:03
Speaker
They crawl further corners and tag Adams and Reno, but Reno hits his finisher, roll the dice, on Vito, and goes for a pin. The ref is understandably confused, but Chronic tell him to count the pin, so he counts to three. So, do Reno and Vito win for the pin, or does Chronic win because Vito got pinned? I'm not really sure. Total ladder. Oh, okay. Go with that. Sure.
01:05:31
Speaker
Marie gets in, questioning Reno, and he quietly goes and gets a bag of money and throws it to Chronic, then goes to join the natural-born thrillers, calling them his familia. Back in the ring, Clark hits his finisher, the meltdown, on Vito, and Chronic hit a slam called the High Times on him as well. As Maria checks on Vito, we cut to Sanders, who says something that was undoubtedly clever, but no one turns the sound on from that camera, so it's lost to history.
01:05:59
Speaker
Thoughts on- Dang it WCW Thoughts on this one
01:06:06
Speaker
So we had Big Vito on the previous show and I sort of gave him a pass because it's really earning his career at this point. That was sort of proving ground for them. This is an early spotlight for him. It's been a year and it's not a whole lot better. No. He does his weird wavy arm bit as he does move. It's like misdirection. Like you can't see his face, you can't read his expression. I think he's just, he's like, this is martial arts poses.
01:06:32
Speaker
Yeah. It reminds me of the bit in I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, where they're fighting. I feel like it's Isaac Hayes. And they start to karate fight. He's like, you know karate? He's like, dude, you just pretend? Sure. And they start waving their arms and yelling. Two thousands of years start watching us again. So I saw a lot of chronic and they never got interesting at all to me. They're not terrible. I know it was chronic. I have two to four good moves.
01:06:58
Speaker
And again, I can't name all of them, but you know, they definitely exist somewhere in there as a general summary of their career.
01:07:06
Speaker
uh... there's no was yet that sacrifice for story and a non finish i guess yeah you could attack them and is walked off go chronic pendant but i mean they do their moves on them anyway and you just stay down from a roll of ice all betrayal thing but it's just you go to pin them and it's just that doesn't yeah counter anything that's a very strange ending they clearly think that
01:07:29
Speaker
The story of who's paying off chronic is going to cover any deficits in the ring, but the match is interesting. Chronic don't think anything interesting about them, really. It's weird that they dress in vinyl now all of a sudden. So being intense and wearing vinyl is what pilots are like to WCW, because they're all about weed.
01:07:49
Speaker
They work out all the time and I don't get it. They're extremely motivated weed users. I guess, yeah. Famously, people that are high on weed are really dedicated to working out and pursuing their jobs with a high degree of dedication, right? Yeah. Like, what about being a pothead makes you dress like an extra on The Matrix?
01:08:10
Speaker
I honestly don't get it. It's the 2000s. Probably they were just smoking it while they were watching The Matrix and that was like, hey man, that would be a great idea, right? Yeah. Give me more Doritos. That would explain a lot of diversity of your writing. Yes. Maybe it's short for chronic pain. Yeah, it's just not a really interesting match and it's just all the soap opera stuff is not extremely exciting either.
01:08:40
Speaker
I really just had more notes on my thoughts rather than the actual match. I was trying to figure out what the storyline was for this. Thank you, Al, for explaining some of it. And I kept on saying, is this the new DQ match? Double the money? What's going on?
01:08:57
Speaker
They had some holdy Phantom Kip camera angles where they just had some kicks to just show up out of nowhere. Yep. And the only other thing that remarkable spot was, do we really think that Vito can do a double takedown? And I was like, no, not really. There's some awkwardness, but I guess they were going for a mafia angle and, you know, where your ties to the family are more important than family. Familia.
01:09:24
Speaker
Well, there's there the family capital F and then family. Yeah. Yeah. And the finishing for me was like, is it possible that Reno's the legal man too? Or that's true. Yeah, he actually, he literally can't possibly get that pinfall. Yeah. Yeah. Very good point. I hadn't actually thought of it from that angle before, but yeah. Well, I think they wanted to make it personal. And I think that that's what their goal was. And they did that.
01:09:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. This was an okay match. A little slow and confusing on the DQ rules, but that just seems to be a theme tonight.
01:10:05
Speaker
The story is simultaneously kind of interesting and very perplexing. I like the mystery client angle, actually. It added a layer of intrigue to the match, but how it actually works is weird. I'm guessing that the idea is that even Adams questioning Maria is part of the job, that Adams knew from the get-go that it was Reno.
01:10:25
Speaker
But I'm a little unclear on that, or if he just actually isn't sure who their client is, because as he noted, he was baked. True. To the match's credit, while Chronic and Reno do fight early on, they don't actually spend that much time doing so. So you can kind of say they just took a little pain sucker Vito in, I guess. I'm just not really sure why it took so long for Reno to turn on Vito. Why not just let the match start and immediately hit roll the dice and let Chronic win? And yeah, how does that final pinball work anyway?
01:10:56
Speaker
They had a good idea here, honestly, but just a bit of a weird execution. Still, a pretty basic match, but acceptable.
01:11:05
Speaker
Not knowing the background for that match just killed me. It would have helped to have like a more detailed. They have been doing, I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but they have been doing like short video clips before some of the matches during the entrances because the entrances are boring tonight. Oh yeah. They don't really tend to reveal that much of anything, so they're not that useful. Yeah, pretty much. I think even kind of understanding a little bit more about what's going on this match just wasn't that interesting. Not really, no.
01:11:32
Speaker
I mean, there was enough tropes for me to kind of work my way through it, but, you know, at the same time, like... Yeah. I get ya. You're looking really invested in it. Yeah. So as you can imagine, this leads to a match between Big Vito and Reno at Sin, of course. Okay. Somewhere between now and Sin, Chronic are faces. Okay. So that happens somehow between those two points in time.
01:11:57
Speaker
For some reason, Big Vito was not one of the people that they tried to buy his contract out when the company went under. They saw those arm-waving motions and were like, nah. Yeah. So he ended up joining the company, but in 2005. Oh, OK. Meanwhile, they did buy out Reno's contract, whereupon they sent him to developmental, and he left in December of 2001. Oh. Never appearing once on television. Oh, that's kind
Three Count Interview
01:12:21
Speaker
of sad. Yeah. He's like, oh, the idea of buying his contract, I got to do absolutely nothing with him.
01:12:26
Speaker
We go back to Gene Okerlund, who's with Three Count. Moore is still selling from the ladder match. I appreciate your dedication, man, but it's been like a half hour. If you're still doubled over in pain, you should probably be at the hospital. Yeah, fair enough.
01:12:42
Speaker
All right, the Cheninmore, Shane Helms, collectively known as 3Com. I want to congratulate the two of you on that spectacular performance out there in that ladder match. Now, I do know for a fact that both of you have got to be exhausted, but I think the one question that's on everybody's mind, which one of you is going to be facing Lieutenant Loco, aka Shavo Guerrero, for the WCW Cruiserweight time?
01:13:06
Speaker
Gene, the way Sugar Shane Helms sees it, the way Shannon Moore sees it, three count won the match. Three counts got the contract. Three count is the number one contender to the Cruiserweight title and Chavo's got to deal with that.
Comedic Interaction
01:13:22
Speaker
I'm sorry, you guys have an interview here? Of course they do. Do I know you guys?
01:13:26
Speaker
Hey wait, you painted my house last week! That was the worst job I have ever seen! Oh, wait, my bad, my bad. You're the two count, right? Three count. Whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy. I heard you guys won a ladder match to be the number one contender to my Cruiserweight title, right? Well, since you're both next in line,
01:13:43
Speaker
Why don't you take a gander and what you're gonna be fighting for? Like that? Shiny? You think you got what it takes to face me? That's the working man's belt. And I don't think you've worked hard enough yet.
01:14:08
Speaker
I'm still a bit confused at exactly how two people got to be number one contender off a match meant to determine the singular number one contender. But this did do a fair job of getting me interested in seeing Chavo fight both of them at least. Interesting that there wasn't even a sniff of a dissension angle in there with three count either. Yeah. I would have expected to see them starting to argue or at least implying there might be a problem since only one can ultimately be champion. But it was kind of nice to not just throw right into that. Yeah, yeah.
01:14:36
Speaker
I like that they renamed the belt, the working man's belt. Yeah, I thought that would have been great if they just renamed it. Yeah, it's not much related to this. Just setting up Java wouldn't fight them, man. It does a perfectly acceptable job of it, but... Yeah. My notes say, sweet Hanson interview, good renaming. This is a cartoon, right? Yeah, pretty much. Everything's so over the top. Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
01:15:01
Speaker
We go back to Buff Bagwell, who is with Lash LaRue as Corporal Cajun, The Wall as Sergeant AWOL, and Hugh Morris as General Rection. A bunch of guys were rebranded as the Misfits in Action, or MIA, this year, and Morris became their leader with the rank of General, cutting a really stupid promo,
Misfits in Action Promo
01:15:21
Speaker
in which he blamed the writers for his existing pun name, Hugh Morris.
01:15:25
Speaker
and announced that he wanted to be called by his real name, Hugh G. Rexion. 100% real, I swear. Yeah. Ugh. Yeah. All concerns seem kind of embarrassed by the name pretty much immediately, so he pretty much just goes by General Rexion. So the pun name is both stupid and entirely pointless. Chavo Guerrero Jr. used to be part of the group as Lieutenant Loco.
01:15:54
Speaker
Speaking of names, ignoring the most glaring one, you renamed the Wall Sergeant AWOL. Yes. But he's right there behind you. Yeah.
01:16:03
Speaker
He's not AWOL. He's right there behind you. That's a little funny to think that he's the patriotic American soldier guy now When he debuted as the wall because he was with Berlin. That's true I was in the wall that separate East and West Berlin. Yeah, so I guess he found love of country Yeah, there you go or lost love country for Germany. I guess maybe he's AWOL from Germany. Oh It's still really stupid. Yes, it's extremely stupid. Oh
01:16:31
Speaker
Yeah, what'd you think about that name though, John? General Rexion. I just kept on hearing the announcers, like they enunciate it very, very harshly just to make sure they don't flub. Yeah. I thought that was hilarious. But it totally rings WCW. I wouldn't be surprised having WWF do that either. No, no, especially during like the Attitude Era.
01:17:12
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
01:17:18
Speaker
This isn't about Chavo. This is about a guy coming out here week after week crying about Dominic DiNucci taught me 20 years ago. I need a stepping stone. I lost my meal ticket. This is about Star Kate franchise. This is the US title. I didn't fight for this thing for five months to let you use me as a stepping stone. The misfits are not stepping stones. And this is not about Chavo Guerrero.
01:17:44
Speaker
You know what? I gotta believe him. Guess what? Tonight you'll see that big boy against franchise for the U.S. title. I can't wait! Acting. Once this got direction, this was actually, I thought, a simple but very effective promo, building up him not being willing to be seen as a stepping stone for someone else's rise, and wanting to be seen as a champion in his own right. The Chavo stuff detracts a little, maybe overcomplicating what could be a simple and powerful story, but overall this did work for me pretty well.
01:18:14
Speaker
best promo so far yeah he like just gets shouty and emotional and it's it's pretty good actually yeah that much there's not much or zero nuance to it right yeah but it is what it is yeah our fifth match is Bam Bam Bigelow versus that 70s guy Mike Awesome in an ambulance match the referee for this match is Billy Silverman
01:18:40
Speaker
You win an ambulance match by putting your opponent in the ambulance and closing the doors. So the two were originally supposed to clash at Mayhem the month before, but Bam Bam, in an attempt to prove his hardcore cred, decides to tag Mike Awesome backstage and took him out so they didn't get to have that match. This in turn brought out the harker side of Mike Awesome, who had gone through several transitions since coming to the company.
01:19:06
Speaker
Basically, WSW spent a lot of money to get him to come leave ECW as their world champion without dropping the belt. They apparently had an extra like five or six figures for that. And then weren't sure what to do with them. So he went from being Mike Awesome to the Career Killer Mike Awesome to the Fat Chick Thriller Mike Awesome.
01:19:27
Speaker
Yep. Weirdly, upwards momentum, going to that 70s guy, Mike Awesome. Marginal improvement, or at least a lateral move. Yeah. It's weird. Yes. This is sort of, they're trying to push him out of that, back to where he's supposed to be, or was originally. Awesome. Yeah. That basically just evids. They're trying to put in a hardcore situation until he can segue out of this terrible character. Okay.
01:19:53
Speaker
Piccolo's entrance video is punctuated by shots of him thumping his chest in front of the words Jersey Shore. It looks really cheap. Oh yeah.
Ambulance Match Details
01:20:02
Speaker
Awesome's entrance music, more generic rock, doesn't really scream 70s. Awesome beckons on the entrance ramp and the ambulance drives out to park next to it. Awesome strips off his 70s clothes so he's in his wrestling gear. Would have been less disturbing if he'd done that backstage. He says Bam Bam will be going in the ambulance and charges the ring.
01:20:22
Speaker
Bigelow starts strong, but Awesome hits a rebound back elbow from the corner and clotheslines him over the ropes. They brawl outside, involving the barricades, ring post, ring bell, somebody's soda, a chair, and the ring apron, neither really getting the advantage. They fight over to the ambulance, and Awesome tries to put Bigelow in, but Bigelow elbows free and slams Awesome's shoulder in the door a few times until Awesome kicks him in the nuts. Bigelow shelves Awesome hard into the ambulance, but Awesome dodges a punch, and Bigelow's arm goes through the window.
01:20:51
Speaker
great looking spot, but even if the window was, I assume, gimmicked for safety, probably not the best one to do less than a year after Goldberg nearly lost his arm at a window spot. Yeah, maybe.
01:21:03
Speaker
Awesome does pull a great, holy crap everybody, do you believe that kind of face though? It's really endearing there. Awesome uses the ambulance to beat Bigelow up, but Bigelow uses his chair to turn the tide as they randomly go back to the ring and the announcers are confused, as was I.
01:21:21
Speaker
Bigelow DDT and he smacks awesome right into the announce table as Silverman pointlessly yells at him in a no disqualification match. The very polite DDT from Ben Bigelow. Oh right, yeah he actually, you see it sometimes to let the other guy know it's time to go down for the DDT they'll like slap their back once or twice to give him the timing. Once you see it you don't unsee it.
01:21:42
Speaker
And yeah, Bigelow very clearly does this, this nice gentle slap a couple of times on Austin's back, very clearly timed. Like we are going down for the DDT now. It's very, very nice. Would you join me in the DT? I mean, don't get me wrong. I would want someone to do that for me if I were doing, if I were taking a DDT and I also don't want to take a DDT, but... Yeah, I've taken one, it's not fun. Yeah. I'll tell you a story there.
01:22:09
Speaker
Bigelow moves the stairs, but gets whipped into them himself. Doesn't rate on the Sino scale as they were freestanding. Bigelow's arm is bloody, so whatever gimmicking they did didn't make the window entirely safe.
01:22:22
Speaker
Awesome tries to send Bigelow through a table, but Bigelow counters to toss him into it instead. They head back to the ambulance and climb up on the hood, and Bigelow goes to the roof and rips off the safety lights to hit Awesome, but Awesome gets them and hits Bigelow to send him falling through the roof into the ambulance, giving Awesome the win. Thoughts on this one? I thought it was good. It's not exactly a super nuanced match. It's definitely a lot of fighting and weapons at the ringside area, but the ambulance and backs ringside area.
01:22:51
Speaker
I thought the actual action that was good, there was less of a disconnect for me between them fighting and using weapons in gimmicky ways than there was in the hardcore match earlier. That one felt that they used weapons to randomly backstage and they had them, whereas this is, hey, we're at ringside, here's all the stuff we can actually use. Yeah, it's actual things that would reasonably be in the area that they are fighting in, yeah. Right. Yeah.
01:23:13
Speaker
I like that when it seemed to start going his way, Mike Awesome tried to go right to the ambulance, try and win the match, sort of play with the story of the match where he thought he had the advantage, so might as well went quickly rather than going through a long fight. So I'm actually less bothered by the going back to the ring thing, because if you're watching it, it does actually flow pretty well for me. I know you have to accept that they stay there, but basically Mike Awesome has things go against him when they're by the ambulance. So he runs half way down the ramp, took out the chair.
01:23:42
Speaker
Bigelow hits them and he pushes them back towards the ring and they start fighting there. So he goes halfway to the ring to get a weapon and is knocked the other half way as far as a fight. He doesn't just casually walk to the back and they start fighting there again. They at least connected it a lot more for me.
01:23:59
Speaker
There's a reason why they got there. It's not just, let's stop and I walk back now. Sure. Yeah. I get what you're saying on the match strategy for Mike Awesome. I think I would have liked it better if maybe he just 100% just sprinted back to the ring to make that clearer. Right. Just having him like just totally flee back would make it a little bit of a clearer storyline thing rather than them just being like, we're going back to the ring now. It was what it felt like to me.
01:24:22
Speaker
I thought I just took the focus off the ambulance, which was the unique part of the match. It made sense for me from a timeline to have him go back to the ring where there's
Mike Awesome's Potential
01:24:31
Speaker
less risk of them both being eliminated immediately, especially after they both have taken damage being slammed against the ambulance. I think it's important to just say, we need to wear them down. And it's not what people call walk and brawl where you're clearly not really fighting or walking slowly and sort of casually pointing to the shoulders or the back or something.
01:24:52
Speaker
there was no rakes but no back rakes oh yes yes no back here yeah i relabeled this one on my sheet uh bam bam bigelow versus physics
01:25:04
Speaker
Awesome. I don't know if the glass break was intentional or the effect on him was planned or whatnot, but he did genuinely look like he was selling it or there was some issue. Nothing, like he wasn't gushing blood or anything, so I wasn't afraid of him losing a finger or anything, but hey.
01:25:24
Speaker
When you gimmick those, you use what's called sugar glass. Shaped it, yeah. Which glass, but it's made not fused in hamburger glasses. Which we watch movies when someone throws into a window and it showers into a million tiny pieces. Yeah. That sugar glass, real glass, breaks into five or six big shards that are dangerous.
01:25:41
Speaker
So when punching, it didn't shatter the window, but he punches his way through. So it's possible there was some glass and maybe like some sort of sheen or plastic on it. That's why he punched through. Yeah. It's like punching through heavy cardboard almost. He's just going to have a sharp edge. He definitely cut himself on the glass. Yeah. I'm agree. Even if it's Lexan or whatever, some made up or pre-cut, you know, there's always- It wasn't sugar glass. It didn't shatter, really. Yeah. Yeah.
01:26:04
Speaker
The, the full aluminum that he fell through at the top, I actually paused it and tried to frame advance. And there's like particle board that flips up when he goes in there. I was trying to look for that. There's a little bit. Yeah. You can just, just catch a glimpse of it. It's a little triangle of it. You know, on further thought, I think they avoided the ambulance because they probably were afraid of breaking whatever gimmick they're going to. Fair point. Yeah.
01:26:31
Speaker
They talk about, oh, those lights are really hard to rip off like he's doing it with one hand. So yeah, yeah, there's no bolts on it. So at least the big finish with falling to the top is such a hard spot to get to that you couldn't. They didn't like stop and work around it, obviously to avoid. Oh, yeah. It's they did a good job of having the gimmicks part of the ambulance be on the top. So it's hard to accidentally muck that up because I mean, it's WCD. You know, if there's any chance of mucking it up, they would. Yes.
01:27:00
Speaker
the camera guy would have actually stepped in and fallen through. Like a tiger trap would have been hilarious, but would have ruined the finish. Camera man's up there getting a shot. Whoa. That would be great. It would be. For me, this was a pretty basic brawl without much in the way of notable spots, aside from the window punch. Despite this being short, I just kind of felt like they were padding the match out with a little bit extra walking and doing some extra things that added to the length without actually adding to the content or story for me. Still, I feel like I'm saying this a lot tonight, but it was all right.
01:27:31
Speaker
Mike Awesome's expressions were really good fun, and the ending spot was great. I'm sure an ambulance roof is built more sturdily than that, but it was still a nice surprising end to the match.
01:27:40
Speaker
I like that his reaction to when the glass broke originally, but then also when he gets a second hit and makes Bigel fall through, he has this great bit of realization in his face. He realized he won because he fell into the ambulance. He didn't catch it right away. He has to think about it, wait, I won, and then he's like right there. No, yeah. Awesome is actually pretty awesome in this batch. No pun intended. He has just great reactions to things, and that was
01:28:05
Speaker
That was keeping me in the match. His reactions to things were keeping me in the match when I was a little not that into the actual action at points. Just his personality was actually really, really good.
01:28:17
Speaker
My one I get with this match is, in a way it reminds me of the DDP Giant match we had from 90, was it 98? Okay, make sure that you're right in these things. You've done 17 of these or 18 of these now. This was the 18th one, yeah. Yeah, so make sure I have these right. As you recall, I liked that match, but my problem with the match overall was that it wasn't what I knew it could have been.
01:28:40
Speaker
My issue is that I know Mike Awesome could and has done look up this match. I get that Mike Awesome can't do any of his power bombs to Bambigolo because he's so big and I'm not sure he can take big falls anyways at his combination of his age and his size and everything. So I get why he's not power bombing as cool as that would be.
01:28:59
Speaker
But we also, and again, Mike Gossum doing a dive, which I know he could do, which is really impressive. He didn't dive out of the ring at Bigelow. I don't know if it's the issue of catching or what. Yeah. He didn't, didn't dive out of the ring at Bigelow in the opening five seconds of the match or at any other point. Yes.
01:29:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the fact is he was six, eight, six, nine. I don't know what the exact title was. Oh, yeah. Two, eighty, three and a pound of muscle. And he's diving with a ring like the cruiser. Oh, yeah. No, it's amazing to see. Yeah. So it's a shame you don't get to see that in the match. No, I get to see him do a frog splash, which is really impressive as well, because he got an amazing air on those. So it's not 100 percent the match I was hoping. He has a Mike Awesome one, especially because they're only one as part of Starrcade, unfortunately. But I thought the match was still good. Yeah. OK.
01:29:42
Speaker
So in the follow-up of this, Mike Awesome has a backstage promo with Crowbar, who tells him he's not doing the 70s guy gimmick thing anymore. Again, let's talk about what gimmicks are in wrestling. Great. And he tasked Mike Awesome with finding his edge, which is confusing because he won the match here. I don't get what edge he needed to find, but apparently he needed to find it. So they do a segment on Thunder, because this is how important the story is. It happens on Thunder and not Nitro or Paperview.
01:30:09
Speaker
Duggan tells everyone he's planning to leave because he can't work with America and he can't work with Team Canada anymore. Mike Awesome stops in the back. It's just that he stays and watches the rest of the show. He wants to drive him back to his hotel, you know, talk with him, yada, yada. Smash cut towards the end of the show. Team Canada is doing a promo on the ring. Duggan comes in, starts fighting them. And Mike Awesome comes to his rescue only to, of course, turn on him and join Team Canada. Of course. To be clear, Mike Awesome finding his edge is becoming a polite Canadian. Yeah.
01:30:38
Speaker
Canada is the edgiest nation and the most hardcore of all nations, as we know. Yeah. Justin Trudeau is a pretty badass guy. Yeah. Yeah. Punch you out. I know you're being sarcastic, but... Punch you ooch. Sorry. They're pretty good.
01:30:58
Speaker
And Throgoth Fortnough for this as well, as part of the invasion. Mike Austen is the first member of the invasion to win gold there. He actually beat Rhino for the Kharkor title on Ironis Backdown. Okay. Where you fire-bombs him onto a ladder, which I'm sure hurt. We go backstage to Jean, who is with Reno and the natural-born thrillers. That sounds like a bad name. It does.
01:31:21
Speaker
All right Tony, thank you. Reno, you suckered everybody in tonight, including Big Beetle and your sister Marie. What the hell were you thinking? You broke up your family again. Merry Christmas, big brother. I tell you, I must have been adopted because this is my real familia.
01:31:37
Speaker
Just another weevil wobble that got suckered in by the thrillers, Gene. You know, you guys make me sick, but Commissioner Mike Sanders, you've got your own set of problems tonight because all of a sudden it is going to be, yes, these two gentlemen, the perfect event facing Kevin Nash and Diamond Dallas Page with the WCW tag team title.
01:31:56
Speaker
You know, Gene, I know I'm your favorite. Hell, I'm everybody's favorite. But we're not here to talk about me tonight. We're not. We're here to talk about the perfect event. And nobody says perfect event like the perfect event. Just what I thought. Chuck Colombo. Well, let's see. First of all, you got Diamond Dollar's trailer park trash.
01:32:15
Speaker
Then you got that big goof, Kevin Nash. What a goof. I'm disgusted, Sean. Take it away. Tell them how I feel. Kevin Nash, Diamond Dallas Page. For the last two weeks, you were writing your cake holes about how these titles mean something to you. And at Starrcade, how you're going to get them back. Well, guess what, boys? We're at Starrcade. And guess what? You're not getting them back. Note to self. The ones who tell you that winning isn't everything are complete and absolute.
01:32:41
Speaker
Losers! Losers! And that's exactly what you guys will be tonight as the perfect event will retain the tag team titles and go down as the greatest tag team champions in WCW history. And Gene, we got a little something special for you here at Starrcade. What's that? Don't worry about it. I gotta tell you something.
01:33:03
Speaker
That guy there especially, that little wise ass, I'm gonna slap the crap out of him one of these days. Tony, back to you. First time that I've heard someone basically tell someone else to cut a promo for him. Seriously, Palumbo, could you just not think of anything? I don't know.
01:33:24
Speaker
Stasiak's promo is fine enough if a knockoff of The Rock's verbal style incadence. A bit, yeah. Sanders bit is perplexing as all get out. Yeah. Weeple wobble? What does that, what even is that? It's a toy that goes back and forth and always uprights itself. Oh, okay. I guess just maybe referring to it as a punching bag. Yeah, there you go. That makes sense. Yeah, like that's like a little clown, you punch him back and forth.
01:33:53
Speaker
Reno says nothing. He didn't already clearly communicate in the match. So not the best performance or most worthwhile promo here. Yeah. It was fun to find it here. Angry me, Gene, make what sounded like Tony laugh at the end of that. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. That might sound like Tony's surprise laugh. I like that him talking about gets the biggest crowd reaction of the night probably so far. Yeah. Well, as you're currently building up some sort of match with Mindy Oakland, that doesn't happen.
01:34:24
Speaker
Our sixth match is the franchise, Shane Douglas versus General Rection for Rection's WCW United States Heavyweight Championship.
General Rection vs Shane Douglas
01:34:35
Speaker
The referee for this match is Charles Robinson.
01:34:38
Speaker
As Serven said before, General Rection went through a back-and-forth feud with Lance Dorm before finally winning the rubber match and making so Lance Dorm can't challenge him again for the title. He's pretty much immediately challenged by Shane Douglas, who attacks him and makes sure that their interactions are very physical about backstage beatdowns and stuff like that.
01:35:00
Speaker
There's a curious bit they do a couple weeks before this show, where Jane Douglas still has Tori Wilson as his valet, and she interferes in the match, she climbs on, I think his direction's back, and they do the back end of the corner spot, and she's sounding like she's really hurt. But then Chavo is trying to kick her out of the ring, and they're befuddled as to why he's being so heelish. So that's part of his heel turn there.
01:35:26
Speaker
This is kind of a weird aside that the bad guy's valet is taken out, albeit by accident, and then he's complaining in a fairly justified fashion, even though he's definitely the bad guy in the story. Confusing morality system in WCW at this point. Oh yeah. Not exactly Paragon Renegade going on here, huh?
01:35:47
Speaker
I like Douglas' entrance music, but he doesn't really do anything with it. It has this long, slower intro before the drums and guitars start up. It just feels like he should be doing a dramatic pose and then only starting to walk out when the drums hit. But instead he just kind of strolls out. It's a song that calls for showmanship and he gives it none.
01:36:07
Speaker
Yeah, to have this big Catholic church organ build up. He used to be walking up a set of stairs or something. Yeah. Posing on a ramp or something like that. Yeah. There's something he should be doing during that bit. Yeah. The sleeveless gold franchise robe isn't great. No. I'd prefer less big blocky letters and more sparkle, man. He lacks those pieces of flair. Yes, exactly. Sometimes I doubt his commitment to sparkle motion. I do too.
01:36:39
Speaker
Douglas asks for his music to be cut. He winds about taking 20 years to be the best in this sport, and he doesn't get the respect he deserves. Tony rightly says, you earn respect, you don't just get it. Rexion, Hugh Morris, is responsible for his manager being missing tonight, so, and he says something perplexing about tickets being paid for then mocks the presidential election, saying it won't take 36 days to figure out who wins this contest.
01:37:04
Speaker
Then he says he's going to put a hole in Rexion's heart. Jeez. That's violent. It's kind of a rickety one. Rexion comes out. His gear is confusing. He's wearing an MIA shirt. But underneath that, he's got gear marked with question marks, which, I mean, that's not a Rexion thing or a Hugh Morris thing, I don't think. Is he the Riddler? Maybe he's the question. Maybe.
01:37:32
Speaker
Douglas cowers in the corner as he approaches, but the moment Rexion turns his back, Douglas attacks. Douglas kicks and chokes Rexion, taunting the crowd. But as he strikes Rexion in the corner, Rexion no-sells and just glares at him and lance chops. Douglas tries an eye poke to keep control, but Rexion fires back with a clothesline and vicious slaps. He sets up for a charge, but Douglas pulls Robinson in the way, and Rexion actually stops in time. That never happens. That's a shock.
01:38:00
Speaker
Madden tries to argue that Chavo Guerrero would have run into Robinson, and that means that he has a winning attitude. I have no idea what that means. No. Ooh. Rexion does a splash, and Douglas slumps outside, and Rexion beats him up by the announce table. Back in, Rexion doesn't quite no-sell but, I guess, guts through several strikes to the crotch and face. Rexion catches Douglas with a bear hug. Oh, joy.
01:38:27
Speaker
Comes the best part of the match. Yeah. That goes on for a while. Rection does at least lower him down for a couple two counts, and eventually Robinson checks the arm and it stays up on the third try. That's more of a face spot, isn't it? Yeah. Speaking of faces, Douglas bites Rections to get free.
01:38:44
Speaker
Douglas tries a slam, but Rection falls on top for two and goes for his moonsault. But, Douglas knocks him to the mat, and hits a weird flipping neckbreaker on the ground. I couldn't really figure out how that was supposed to work. I don't, honestly, that either is really weird. Yeah.
01:39:00
Speaker
Impressive, easy-looking Douglas Piledriver, and a neckbreaker for two and a half. He twists Rexion's neck, and Rexion tries to get the fans to cheer for him, but they seem disinterested. Douglas utterly whiffs on a clothesline, but Rexion generously sells anyway, and they end up brawling outside again. Douglas is bloodied. Back in, Rexion tries the moonsaw, but Douglas dodges.
01:39:22
Speaker
Douglas tries to punch Rexion with a hidden chain, but Rexion backdrops him, and Douglas clearly throws the chain away. But Chava Guerrero runs down and throws it back to Douglas behind Robinson's back, then directs Robinson's attention to Douglas, and Robinson DQs Douglas, giving Rexion the win.
01:39:39
Speaker
An angry Douglas decks Rection with a chain, and punches him several times with it. Chavo at first retreats, but then runs down to try to save Rection, only to get decked with the chain too. Douglas hits his Jawbreaker Finisher, the Franchiser,
01:39:54
Speaker
on Rection and Chavo in turn, but Corporal Cajun and Sergeant AWOL charge down and Douglas retreats. The sound oddly cuts out for a second. This one's a naughty word, I guess. I guess so, maybe. Rection sees Chavo and asks, why did you do it? Cajun helps Chavo out of the ring, and AWOL helps Rection leave. Thoughts on this one? You know, you'd think of all the people that show up, it wouldn't be AWOL. Yeah. I will not let that go, because it makes no sense.
01:40:23
Speaker
Uh, my main note for the match was it was fairly slow in plotting.
01:40:28
Speaker
It's a lot of slow punching and then a bear hug for 42 and a half years with weird little pinning dips. So it's like, it's like between you dip someone you're dancing, but you like hold them there and it just looks, it's a really old school wrestling thing that just no one does. We saw it in the, in the 80s shows occasionally and what they'd always do is like kind of power it back up as well. So he doesn't do that part, which is not as good. It's weird. It's like, I made a bear hug and I'm going to lean you slowly through the match and hope you stay there.
01:40:58
Speaker
It's a very odd looking spot. I like the actual power spots they managed to work in there. Like I said, Paul Darver's good, and the slams are nice. I'm not 100% clear on the general powering through, taking like three or four low blows in a row like that. That was a little weird, yeah. Like how you just done so many steroids, it just doesn't affect him anymore? I don't give a... Like the punches to the face part just looked cool when he did it to that, but the ball shot ones, it's like that should probably do something.
01:41:28
Speaker
Yeah, I don't get that at all. Maybe you mixed up Shane Douglas and Spice. Oh, yeah. Hers definitely wouldn't sell. Yes. And of course the finish is, I know it was, it is confusing and messy.
01:41:45
Speaker
because, yeah, it's weird. Chavo seems to help Douglas, but then betrays him to help. He's going to win the match, but then feels bad when he's getting beat up and he gets beat up and then... Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, pretty confusing. Genius. It's confusing, like, choose your own adventure story where every section is, like, three lines and it cuts to page 25 and then back to 32 and then they try that again.
01:42:11
Speaker
You know, the whole making fun of the election thing kind of dated it right off the beginning. Oh, yes. Yeah. That goes throughout the buildup shows. I was like Mickey D's versus Blue Pill. You know, I love bear hugs, but somehow I didn't mind this one as much as usual. There was a small buildup. They walked around and they had some exchange. And then the second bear hug went into a pin.
01:42:36
Speaker
And now, by the third bear hug on Freudian Slipman, yeah, I'm over it. Yeah. Die fatty? What? What was that? Oh yeah, Madden like belts out, haha, die fatty when he like misses the moonsault. Oh, what the heck? I fully blocked that out. And then Mickey D's has some weird mirror Kirk or about ready to yell con crazy eyes and puts him into a face tilter. I didn't know the name of the thing, but you know.
01:43:07
Speaker
And then Gretchen, guess what I'm calling him at this point. Here's some sort of music to pump himself up. It mounts a counter attack. Okay. I was drinking when the goofy sneak running started. Fair enough. It spit, did like a spit take. And I was like, sneak running is great. DQN, woo. I didn't mind the DQN because it was over. Yeah, I got that.
01:43:34
Speaker
It sounds like I'm a little more positive on this one, I think, than you guys. I kind of like this one, honestly. Except for the bear hug spot. Which one? I kind of count it all as one gigantic bear hug spot.
01:43:46
Speaker
But aside from that, which admittedly is a large portion of the match, I thought that these two did a pretty good job of bringing out some intensity. The match wasn't very complex, and there's a few weird bits like the no-selling kicks to the nuts, but they both showed emotion and I found myself actually getting into their fight. It felt kind of weird to me that the crowd wasn't.
01:44:06
Speaker
The ending, though, was all kinds of confusing. I guess it's interesting because I do want to know what Chavo's goals were there, but it's just such a strange way to end a match. Hand your buddy's opponent a weapon, then tell the ref so he loses the match and will now be an extremely ticked-off person with a weapon. Yeah. Not the best planning there. Hey, Al. Here, take this dagger. Oh, thanks. By the way, I think you're an idiot. Hey. Ah! How did I not see this coming?
01:44:34
Speaker
Otherwise, a little sloppy, but some decent action, and I had some fun with this one, honestly. Yeah, I don't know. I absolutely think they could have a good match together, and maybe their next one is. Just the pacing wasn't very good for me. They do good moves, but it just takes forever, and then that giant, prolonged bear hug in the middle. So that's all momentum for me. I feel like if you kind of managed to chop out the bear hug spot, it's a pretty good match. But with the bear hug spot, that definitely drags it down. Don't get me wrong on that.
01:45:02
Speaker
It's kind of a weird thing where the general can definitely sell car insurance and also do power moves. And that mood solace generally impressively does. Oh yeah, yeah. It's no laughing matter, just like it's what they call that. Yes.
01:45:17
Speaker
But he's powerful, but St. Nuggles isn't super strong himself, so it's not too power wrestlers fighting. But it's also not too technical wrestlers fighting.
Post-Match Confusion
01:45:27
Speaker
It's not quite enough of one or the other to be a big power match, or a 10 level match, or a really consistent brawl. It just kind of tries to be everything, and has a big slow part in the middle, and it just didn't get invested.
01:45:40
Speaker
The ending was nice because they could do something with the narrative. There could be some redemption, like, what were you trying to do? There's some story that they can do behind it. They could have them break up. They could have them be friends. They had the tag team help them out. Maybe they formed two new tag teams. I don't know. Yeah, they definitely have some potential coming from that. Right. I mean, I felt like when they were walking back, it was just some sort of misunderstanding or some unintended outcome. And maybe they were going to resolve it somehow. So I thought that was good.
01:46:10
Speaker
Yeah. Also, am I the one that's confused by the logistics of Shane Douglas' finisher? Is it Jawbreaker by like he lifts you under his hat or something? It's not really clear how the move works the first time. It's a pretty weird finisher, yeah, I don't have to say. I can't even describe how it's supposed to work. It's like, something, something, now your jaw hurts. Yeah. And I'm confused by how the whole thing works. And the franchiser name is just weird. Yes. It's like, I have finished you off and got the three count and now you own a Wendy's.
01:46:39
Speaker
I mean, if he had like a spare jacket and put it on you after he knocked you out, then okay. There you go. Yeah. But he didn't. Take the snake, but with, you know, jackets and not a snake. Yeah. As you can probably imagine, this is leading up to a rematch between St. August and the general, which has not one, but two stipulations. The first is that as a first blood match. So I guess Rambo's involves the guest referee, naturally.
01:47:07
Speaker
And it is also a chain on a pole match. Oh god. And answer your question, no, they did not rehire Russo again.
01:47:15
Speaker
They're just having to have a first blood chain and a pole match. Okay. To open the year. As far as the misfit story goes, they try to push the story where Chavo definitely is not coming back to them. He's definitely staying his heel self and not being lent a loco again, but it seems like he's trying to recruit Lasharu, Corporal Cajun to be an aside. So they're trying to have a division between them going forward. So they do actually play up that a little bit. Okay.
01:47:44
Speaker
We go backstage to Jean, who is with Scott Steiner and WCW World Heavyweight Champion Medasia.
Scott Steiner's Promo
01:47:51
Speaker
Getting, she just gets to hold Steiner's belt for him. Once the audio finally cuts in, we can hear Jean interview Steiner. I am not playing this promo. Mm-mm, absolutely not. Jean says Steiner and Vicious are confined to their locker rooms. Steiner says the key word is beat and makes Jean repeat it. Vicious will be beat. The second beat is when insert several sexual references here.
01:48:15
Speaker
So that happened. The 10 seconds of wrestling promo we got from Steiner Hero was energetic, but then it just devolved into him talking about sex and it never came back. So I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to move on. I think we should insert the whole thing. Don't say insert. Oh my gosh. The best part comes right after it.
01:48:40
Speaker
Yes. And now best part of the show right here. Oh yeah.
01:48:57
Speaker
We get an awesome promo video for Glacier. Now these kind of videos actually first played in 1996 when he was first coming to WCW, but apparently they've decided to run them again, and they're just as gloriously over the top as before and just as close to copyright infringement. Besides the obvious knockoff of the Mortal Kombat theme, they've got this big circular portal thing that's clearly a knockoff of the Stargate from the movie or SG-1. I can't remember if the series had started yet.
01:49:28
Speaker
The old promos used the tagline blood runs cold, but these used the tagline blood runs colder. The Ice Age returns to WCW. Again. Honestly, we're like an hour and 38 minutes into the show right now, and if you just showed me stuff like that for an hour and 38 minutes instead of what we've seen so far, I think I'd be a lot happier. Oh yeah.
01:49:56
Speaker
So to be clear, none of this retappens on pay-per-view at all. It is 100% confined to Thunder. Oh great. Not Nitro Thunder. The Glacier Billop actually began at Mayhem, where they literally mentioned Stargate, they play it on the show, and one of them, Nick Mark-Man is at a Stargate. So yeah, if they hadn't been to suit yet, that was common.
01:50:19
Speaker
The promo is running for a couple weeks more after this, they run him on Nitro and Thunder. However, the big payoff comes where Norman Smiley gets a note backstage from Glacier, who tells him that he is going to be ringside to back him up. Norman Smiley, he has a match against Goldberg, and of course he doesn't beat Goldberg, and Glacier does not show up. Did they make a cold shelter joke? I hope they do, but they didn't catch it. The next week on Thunder,
01:50:49
Speaker
Northmize got another match against somebody. Glacier does actually show up. They play his music. He appears at the ramp wearing the really cheap looking armor. The really awesome armor though. Right. In that it is cheesy and cheap looking. 100%. But hilarious. Substandard. Yes. Pretty much.
01:51:09
Speaker
Glacier spends the whole time walking on ringside, high-fiving people, taking pictures with them, and clearly ignoring what's happening in the ring. This sounds awesome, I have to say, actually. The week after Glacier finally actually goes up but doesn't help, Norman Smiley is talking to him backstage in his locker room and thanks him for showing up, but asks if he could maybe pick up the pace a little bit and actually help him out. So Norman's got a match against Bayman Bigelow,
01:51:37
Speaker
where Glacier does the exact same thing all over again. Finally, Bama Bigelow is bored with being on Norman Smiley after he's won the match and casually rolls out of the ring and walks to the back, whereupon Glacier slides into the ring and announces that he's scared off the enemy and vanquished him and has saved Norman Smiley. He ends up chasing him off. That leads to the sadly final
01:52:00
Speaker
Glacier Bit, the very next Thunder, where Smiley has a match against one of the members of the natural porn thrillers. So we see Norman in the back again, backstage in the locker room, talking into the locker room, we don't actually see into the room, asking him again to be a little more helpful at this time. I appreciate you shut up, but you have to be more helpful. And then leaves go to the ring, whereupon, marching during Toronto Hare, walk up
01:52:26
Speaker
Joke about how Glacier's maybe not gonna help him this time. Go into the room. The camera does not follow them. We hear lots of grunting and smashing noises. And they walk out about 30 seconds later, laughing about how easy it was to beat Glacier up, adding that he was, quote, standing on his cape the entire time. And that is the end of the Glacier Return story. Okay. All on thunder.
Glacier's Nostalgic Promo
01:52:51
Speaker
I do have to say, up until that last bit, I think it kind of did sound like gold to me. If you kept that going a little longer and did something with it, it would be pretty fun. That's the thing, too. After the first time he appears and does the silly Norman the Ring bit, so it actually does have a sign saying, Glacier's my hero. The people got that they're going for a top thing, and it just stops. Yeah, that's sad. The reason is that I'm not clear.
01:53:15
Speaker
Uh, probably cease and desist letters. They also miss the opportunity to call themselves Thriller Instinct. Yes. Just saying. Yeah, yeah. If you're gonna get sued, you might as well try. You might as well go whole acrum, whole arachno man. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I couldn't fill that stupid name.
01:53:42
Speaker
We go back to Buff Bagwell, who's with The Insiders, Kevin Nash and Diamond Dallas Page.
01:54:08
Speaker
I tell you what, I'm trying to figure out if all those guys together combined are making the same amount of money as your contract alone.
01:54:30
Speaker
With his soul out? I give him the room. The thing is, he says, these two jag-offs, we've had it with these guys. It's Starrcade, it's a granddaddy. This is Mr. Christmas himself.
Nash and Page's Bizarre Promo
01:54:41
Speaker
And, you know, the insiders decided they're gonna give themselves a little Christmas present. It's the tag team belts. It's as easy as that.
01:54:47
Speaker
Down like this buff daddy. Not your born monkeys. You see big Kevin page Nash and page. We found a fountain of youth We're like fine wine. That's right. We're in our prime. You're gonna push us out They've been trying to hold us back for years back that came up monkey did both of us in this picture They've been trying to hold us down for years. They said we'd never get here. Well, guess what we did both actually
01:55:25
Speaker
You're like Buff Masterson. Who? Buff Masterson. Tune in baby. Was Nash drunk? Usually a better question to ask is Nash not drunk?
01:55:43
Speaker
given all the stories he'll tell about. Oh my gosh, this was so weird. Paige's promo isn't great, but Paige does at least get across that he and Nash feel like the thrillers aren't a threat. Nash just kind of makes weird jokes the whole time. It's a very, very strange promo, and it seemed like Buff was expecting some kind of dramatic ending from Nash there and just was confused by what he got.
01:56:04
Speaker
Yeah, you got a bath Masterson reference. Yeah, that Masterson. Yeah, like what? I get the joke is how buff dressed with a little like bowler hat on. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like That's all you've got Nash what I have a feeling that like if I did promos they would be like that. Yeah You just want to be goofy and not really fully make sense. I'm okay with that. I
01:56:28
Speaker
I don't know even how to describe it, really. It's just he's kind of saying they're just goofing off. Yeah. But they're live. Yeah.
01:56:38
Speaker
There's a bit with Kevin Nash as part of the buildup to the match, the previous match in Mayhem. Before he introduces DDP, he has typical Kevin Nash breaking kayfabe and all that, where he talks about how he had 13 months and 10 days left on his contract. But he was counting, as he said. And so I did the math on that. So that would mean his contract expired at some point in January 2002.
01:57:02
Speaker
which actually is true. So he actually was counting. If anyone's going to be very aware of his contract negotiations, I'm sure it's Kevin Nash. Oh yeah. Our seventh match is Jeff Jarrett and the Harris brothers, Ron and Don versus the filthy animals. That's Conan Kidman and Ray Mysterio with Tigris in a bunkhouse brawl slash filthy animal street fight. Referee for this one is Scott James.
01:57:30
Speaker
So this is a weird one to recap, as weird as you'd expect from two matches that are basically the same. That's somehow different. Yes. The build-up to this involved the filthy animals being a set faction. Ray is booked in a match against Jeff Jarrett on Nitro. Bear in mind, Jeff Jarrett is a bad guy because, you know, he says slapknight, so of course he's a bad guy. Yes. You can't be a good guy and say slapknight. No. It's a rule. Yeah, it is a rule. Yes, definitely.
01:57:55
Speaker
With that in mind, the affiliate animals are constantly teething against him and his mattress or his stereo. So that leads to Jeff Jarrett finally getting tired of their teething and hitting Ray or the guitar at mid-air, which is a pretty cool visual. But he of course loses by DQ because of that, because he's running for their free. So he then decides to hire the tag team that you can just hire to fight for you. And no, that's not chronic.
01:58:18
Speaker
even though it is, because there are two tag teams that are two big, tall, fairly untalented guys in the back who will fight for you. The difference is Chronic apparently takes bags of unmarked cash. The Harris brothers take, quote, a couple of sandwiches and some drinks.
01:58:37
Speaker
Well, you know, you get what you pay for. Yes. He hires the Harris brothers to even the odds against them, thus putting in place a multi-man few living going on. And as part of that, the filth animals challenge him to a street fight, which of course he then turns into a street fight slash bunkhouse brawl. Okay.
01:58:57
Speaker
Jeff Jarrett's favorite word is now just all over the place. It's on his entrance video, on his shirt, on his headband, on his guitar. Welp, that killed any chance for him to get Al's MVP this year? 100%. He grabs a microphone and says the filthy animals thought they were gonna get one over on him, but he's the chosen one and he has the stroke. So he got Commissioner Sanders to make this a street fight and a bunkhouse match. I still have no idea what the difference is.
01:59:21
Speaker
He calls out to Ron and Don Harris and they make their entrance to some wibbly-wobbly guitar music. Well, Tony goes over the feud and we see shots of the various props, including a popcorn machine, a saloon bar counter and stools, a shopping cart full of soda cans, and a dumpster with a broom and some cardboard. The filthy animals make their entrance. Mysterio's sparkly suspenders and devil horns make me long for the furry Chewbacca jacket. I'd take the horn over that still. Really? It's not a good choice.
01:59:51
Speaker
Jarret hurls a graffitied up garbage can at Mysterio, but he catches it and rams it into Jarret and we're off. Tigris joins the announced team as a chaotic brawl ensues, with the teams hitting each other with anything available. Amongst the Chaos, Conan and Kidman perfectly time simultaneous shots with bar stools on the heresies. Jarret and Mysterio duel with trash cans, and Kidman runs Jarret into the popcorn machine, which seems more delicious than painful.
02:00:16
Speaker
The animals gain the advantage and Mysterio hits the incredibly stupid Bronco Buster move on each Harris as Tigress oddly starts barking. But Jarratt blocks it with a boot and hurls Mysterio away. More chaos and Jarratt ends up trying to superplex Kidman through the bar counter and clearly sees Mysterio coming but goes for it anyway. Shockingly, Mysterio hits him in the crotch and he and Kidman drive Jarratt through the counter instead for two as a Harris saves.
02:00:43
Speaker
Kidman and Mysterio each get some crazy flying moves in, but Jarett turns an attempted Mysterio rebound, Hurricane Rana, into a powerbomb, into a dumpster, and Mysterio is out cold. Conan checks on him as Kidman crossbodies Jarett for two, but as Conan gets back in, the ref suddenly decides that tag rules exist in this match, and forces everybody but Harris and Kidman to the apron. It's inverse of the first match tonight, and Tony is just as perplexed by that as I am.
02:01:10
Speaker
Yeah, he jokes about that he wants to have something on these guys. They get him to agree. Jared and the Harris' tag in and out, beating Kidman up, and earn a few two counts, with Kidman only being able to fight Breck briefly after a Harris can't powerbomb Kidman. Of course, that's the rule. Kidman finally escapes with the Bulldog and tags Conan, who hits rolling clotheslines to all three heels in a nice spot. You can catch a supposedly unconscious Jared, staring right at Kidman to see if he should be getting up yet on the tag.
02:01:38
Speaker
Conan's offense gets cut off by the Harris' underwhelming double team finisher, the H-bomb. Jared and the Harris' retrieve a table, and Hudson jokes that there's so many tables under the ring, it's like it's a Pez dispenser for tables. Okay, he had one good line tonight. By the way, Jared and the Harris is also a good band name. It actually is, yeah, yeah.
02:01:58
Speaker
Mysterio wakes up and goes wild with a broom on the heels. Jarett falls on the table, but it doesn't position right, so Mysterio has to move him off, move the table, and put him back on. Slight suspensions of disbelief problems there. Mysterio tries a springboard splash, but the Harris' catch him. Jarett rolls off the table, and the Harris' hit the H-bomb on Mysterio through the table.
02:02:22
Speaker
Kidman makes the save and disposes of the Harruses, hitting his disturbingly named Kid Crusher. Don't think about that one too hard. Jared takes it entirely on his knees. Oh yeah.
02:02:35
Speaker
A Harris breaks a beer bottle over Kidman's head and he goes down, so Jared hits the stroke for the three count and the win. Hudson keeps calling Jared and company the Nashville World Order because we need more NWO stuff. Tigris checks on Mysterio and the ref checks on Kidman. Thoughts on this one? I describe it as a confusing match as... yes.
02:02:58
Speaker
I'm not saying I would've really liked this match a whole lot, but I would've liked it better if it was either A, the constant chaotic weapons fight it is at the beginning.
02:03:07
Speaker
just shorter or be a somewhat controlled weapons tag team match with second half of the matches. But because it's both of them, I can't really invest in either version of the match because it's once you are to follow and one is okay to follow, but it's not interesting. It's the worst of both worlds, really. So the second part is the bunkhouse part.
02:03:30
Speaker
Yeah I'm not really sure like I think that's maybe the idea is that one of them is a match that would have tag rules and the other doesn't but I don't know that either of them would actually have tag rules because a street fight normally doesn't a bunkhouse match I mean number one is normally a singles match yeah but
02:03:45
Speaker
I don't think it does either, so I'm not really sure. But I think that's maybe the idea they're going for, is that that's why the tag rules suddenly get imposed. But the announcers are totally perplexed by that, so they clearly didn't tell them the storyline if that's what it was. Which is classic WCW. Yes. Also, we just had a bunkhouse brawl last year, and last episode of the show, where they didn't have bar sets at all. No. So what part of that is? Well, a wheelbarrow and a bar and stools are identical.
02:04:15
Speaker
Huh? See, because the wheelbarrow, it has wheels, and bar stools are circular. Okay, go on. No, that's all you need. Oh, that's it? Yeah, sorry, there's more to it. Yeah, there's no further justification needed. I think I've ruined my life. Is this one of those coffee cup is also a donut kind of explanation? Yeah, pretty much.
02:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, that whole part doesn't resemble the bunkhouse brawl we had last year, the Ziggles match. And I'm pretty sure if both of the animals' street fight wouldn't be in a bar, because it'd be in the street. It's usually not a bar.
02:04:49
Speaker
Yeah. There's not normally like popcorn machines from movie theaters just sitting on the street either. Popcorn is usually underestimated. Yeah. And I thought that they could have had a thing where they, someone gets blinded by some hot butter, but they didn't do it or assaulted or any of that stuff. No assault and buttering. You think general erection come out there to meet the carnal or something, but never happened.
02:05:15
Speaker
Why am I the only one not making puns right now? It feels really weird. And JJ passes the bar exam.
02:05:23
Speaker
The best payoff to the popcorn machine is the the poorest stage hand that has to be the one that wheeled out to the back because they broke it open and it's no more popcorn. Everyone taking props to the back could the ring out. This guy's got to awkwardly sort of keep this up but not too far. I'll fill. Yeah, it's glass. He's like he's clearly having such a hard time managing that thing. Poor guy. It's like somebody help him. Yeah, he's a second person on this.
02:05:48
Speaker
My biggest problem with this match is despite all the excess props and exploding tables and wood and debris in general, it's mostly a cover for the fact that basically the match turns into doing the same finish like three times in a row. Cause it's fight, fight, fight. Oh, and the H-bomb, fight, fight. Oh, the H-bomb again. Yeah. I guess they get around doing the H-bomb a third time, but it's just Jeff Jarrett. He's a finisher then. Yeah. Yeah.
02:06:16
Speaker
Like maybe you don't jump at their arms when they're standing there. Yeah. Is it going to happen? Yeah. And apparently the problem is this super devastating finisher because Conan is down for a while after that. I get raised because Ray already took the power on the spot and then went through a table. But yeah, Conan is just, I guess that was critically successful against him. Yeah.
02:06:37
Speaker
It's too confusing to make sense, and it's not interesting enough because of that. I couldn't follow the story of it and get invested at all. Did you like the guest announcing that part where they're having that conversation throughout the whole match? Yeah, they're talking about her being worried for her boyfriend Ray Mysterio. There were, I don't know, some moderately okay lines in the middle of it, but it was also just kind of a weird discussion. Yeah.
02:07:07
Speaker
It was refreshing. I was like, OK, well, I don't know what this is. Yeah, yeah. I was like, she seems nice. Yeah. Yeah. And I enjoyed Ray Ray's double Bronco. Oh my gosh. I thought that was good. And then I was like, OK, Rule of Three came into play. And yeah. Reminds me, he hates his own undercarriage. I don't get how the Bronco Buster is supposed to hurt anything other than your own balls.
02:07:35
Speaker
Can you explain that to me, John? There is a sheer force when your weight is transferred to something like when you're doing the bounce where you probably are putting three or four times your normal weight on them until the turnbuckle gives. So there is a point where that's a controlled movement by the aggressor. So you're not able to position yourself in a way where the pelvic thrusting does not harm your person. Okay.
02:08:03
Speaker
also yeah it seems self-inflictory yeah it's like yeah it's it's a weird move i think it's more for a showboat it's just a showy thing yeah but oh my gosh i did like that they incorporated some of the props into their moves sure just like i wanted the moonsault ladder thing from earlier but you know they did have the route yeah was it route 51 face buster or something
02:08:31
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Ray does his sentence thing with the sign under him and everything. They use the props fairly well over the course of the match. And surprisingly, no one's bleeding. Someone went face first in that popcorn machine, I guess.
02:08:46
Speaker
Enough. Well, I actually looked on that when I was doing my show notes. The front of it is open at the time or knocked off or something like that. So he doesn't actually go through glass into the popcorn. He just goes into popcorn, which that's not going to harm you. It might be a little hot. Unless you're allergic to coconut oil. Yeah. Maybe he has a salt allergy. Yeah.
02:09:10
Speaker
This was fun, but really chaotic and confusing. There were a lot of great spots and some neat stunts, but it was hard to know what to pay attention to at any given moment during the first half of the match. And I found it hard to stay involved in the match because I couldn't keep track of people's positions or conditions that well with everyone going everywhere. Once they moved to tag rules, that got easier, but why did they move to tag rules? I did not expect to be asking questions about mysteriously disappearing or appearing tag rules even once tonight, much less twice. Yeah.
02:09:40
Speaker
If they just started as a six-man tag match, maybe with the weapons from the get-go, I think this would have been an easier match to enjoy. As it was, I did actually like it, but I had to work to like it. I did really enjoy the ending, lots of spots that could have been the finish, but they just kept getting interrupted until finally one team has solid enough control to actually go for the pin. So it was fun, but too chaotic for me.
02:10:06
Speaker
The H-bomb is not a good finisher. We all agree on that? Yeah, let's pick him up kind of in the air and just, you know, set him down in not a particularly aggressive fashion. It looks okay with the table. I'll give him that bit. But I mean, anything kind of looks okay with the table. It's just an underwhelming finisher to be taking people down as hard as it supposedly does.
02:10:27
Speaker
It's like the DT, you know, back in the 80s, it's like, okay, that's the devastating finisher. And you get why people stay down for that. This is not the same thing. Yeah. It doesn't have the gravitas of the diamond cutter or something like that. Even neck breaker. I mean, Legion of Doom used that for a long time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You think of the big double team finishers and this one just does not hold up to the big tag team finishers. You do as much damage if there's one of them or two of them. Right. Yeah.
02:10:54
Speaker
It's part of his victory here. Jeff Jarrett is promoted to being a world title contender. Again, it's surprising going to the match at sin. Well, they thought the animals would segue their feud into a magic team Canada in a penalty box match, where basically the heel ref can decide you done something wrong and put in a penalty box for two minutes during the match itself. Okay.
02:11:21
Speaker
Tony throws to a promo package for WCW's upcoming Sin pay-per-view, their new January show that replaces Sold Out. Darn. It's a great promo, actually. Loads of exciting wrestling shots interspersed with words of virtues and sins and other biblical-sounding words. You cannot imagine what will happen, apparently. Well, I'm up for it. It sounds like that should be our next series. How many shows does it have?
02:11:46
Speaker
Oh. Oh, right. Buff Bagwell is with Sarge DeWayne Bruce. We last saw Sarge as Sergeant Buddy Lead Parker, making an epic crawl to the ring at Starrcade 1991. Match of the night. He has since been training wrestlers at the WCW Power Plant, including Goldberg.
02:12:13
Speaker
I've had a few minutes backstage here to talk to Dwayne Bruce, but you know what, Dwayne, I've got to call you Sarge, is that okay? That's fine. Because when that word Sarge is spoken anywhere around World Championship Wrestling, it's talked about with the utmost respect from all the guys to the booking committee to everybody, and you know, tonight,
02:12:31
Speaker
From what you've done to the power plant to build the talent down there like you had, you've got one guy come out of that power plant that has been a superstar. That's Bill Goldberg. And tonight he's going up against the total package Lex Luger. How do you feel about that? You know, Lex, I know Bill's going against you, but I wished it was me. I've been up and down these roads a long time, had a lot of things, but nothing as frustrating to me as much as you have the last couple of weeks. And if there's one thing I taught Bill Goldberg, that's... That's a weird lesson. Hold on a second. How you doing, man?
02:13:05
Speaker
barely a promo but i guess it does set things up well enough i did love of course lugar selling his own attack louder than his victim yeah that's glorious never change lex never change bless you
02:13:20
Speaker
I think if you are allowed, when you're delivering your strike, it provides more force. Well, yeah. Your key merges with your fist. Yeah, see, Luger has understood that for years, yeah. They're actually just sonic attacks. And shouting on defense is like key barriers to defend himself. Yeah, there you go. That's why it sounds the same either way. Or maybe just a sound wave that's strong enough to flex some of the force. Yeah, yeah.
02:13:49
Speaker
The whole focal point of this is, let's talk about how the Sarge trained Goldberg, but no credit for assassin number one for also helping train Goldberg. Yeah. I mean, he probably taught him many lessons about wearing a mask and putting small pieces of metal in said mask. Critical life lesson. Yeah. I use that every day. I kind of, I wanted to see what your job is like now. It's very useful for surveys, honestly.
02:14:14
Speaker
No one's eating your sandwich from the refrigerator. You got to put my mask on. Yep, yep. There's metal in here and take care of your business. Absolutely. Do you have metal detectors? Nah. Okay.
02:14:31
Speaker
Back at the ring, WCW staff clean up the remains of the props from the previous match. Tony says that they've come a long way since Flair and Harley race in 1983 and starts laughing. The announcers argue about Luger vs Goldberg and Tony brings up the insiders challenging for the tag titles, but that leads to Madden and Hudson having an argument about doctor video footage and Pamela Anderson plastic surgeries as Tony stares straight ahead looking like he'd rather be anywhere but there.
02:14:58
Speaker
Tony throws to a video package covering the tag title match. It basically just tells us that DDP and Nash want the belts, and the thrillers like to laugh a lot and hit people with title belts.
02:15:08
Speaker
useful information. So our eighth match is The Insiders, Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin Nash versus The Perfect Event, Chuck Palumbo and Sean Stasiak, with Commissioner Mike Sanders for The Perfect Event's WCW World Heavyweight Tag Team Championships.
Tag Team Match Setup
02:15:24
Speaker
The referee for this match is Charles Robinson. Storyline for this one? Oh man, you sound quite well with the laughing in that, but I guess I can do a little more.
02:15:34
Speaker
They build a story that Kevin Nash was suddenly being the nice veteran who hopes the young guys in the back pause for laughter. So he had been helped train the natural wind thrillers. And of course, in classic classic fashion, the second they got what they wanted, they betrayed him and attacked him. So he had to call for backup, which was down on Dallas Page.
02:15:56
Speaker
who made his triumphant return, even though he'd done it like a week before, to randomly fight Baladome people. That's for a whole other stupid thing we haven't talked about, and it doesn't matter. Yeah. Side note, I'd love to see Kevin Nash doing Tommy Wiseau's roll from the room. Oh, yeah. You just picture him and everyone betray me.
02:16:13
Speaker
I'm fed up with this world. I could see that. Yeah. Probably sounded a lot like that promo he just did. I only see Nash playing like Thor. Yeah, yeah, I could see that too. He played Thor's dad. Yeah, he did play Odin in a really terrible movie. He did, yeah. I can see the resemblance in him and his son. Yeah.
02:16:33
Speaker
So the part they're referring to about video packages is notable. So at the previous show, Paige and Nash had won the titles. However, after their first title offense, Sanders comes out with some footage, which was clearly doctored, showing that Palumbo had tagged in, but then shows them pinning Sean Stasiak. So they're saying he pinned the wrong person, so the title should be upheld.
02:16:58
Speaker
By the way, how many times has that event actually happened over the course of the Star Cades that we've watched? And it's just been fine. Yeah. This time it matters. Yeah. Rick Flair has a really stupid line about how it's not important who's right or who's wrong. It's important that you do the right thing.
02:17:17
Speaker
even though he must know that footage isn't real because he can watch the actual show. But regardless, he gives him the house back and then announces this match for his target. Okay. Paige sadly doesn't have his knockoff Nirvana theme anymore, but Nash of course still has his theme. So end up you a wolf pack theme count one.
02:17:41
Speaker
Madden tries to imply that there's dissension because the insiders entered separately. Paige literally waited at the top of the ramp for Nash to come out.
02:17:51
Speaker
After the perfect event enter, Rick Flair's theme hits and he comes out in a boring gray suit. Aww. Yeah, I know. Flair takes a microphone and says that Sanders isn't allowed to just run around out here, and if he takes one step towards the ring, then Nash and Page win the tag belts. One step towards the ring, he repeats. One foot in the ring, he amends. I guess Flair realized after the first couple times that the first wording wouldn't even let Sanders finish walking to ringside, so he quickly amended there.
02:18:20
Speaker
Could you just ban him from ringside? You could, yeah. Okay, just checking. An annoyed Sanders takes the belts and goes to the announce table, and Madden tries holding his headset out for Sanders to talk into. It might have worked if Sanders had actually put it on, but he tries speaking into it from the wrong angle and you can barely hear a word he says. I did catch him saying that Flair doesn't run the company, Sanders does. No. No.
02:18:45
Speaker
Nash and Palumbo start, and Palumbo uses a cheap shot to get in some punches, but Nash dominates with corner clotheslines, knee strikes, and punches as Palumbo tries to signal for a timeout. Nash tags Paige, and he comes in with a dive in clothesline for two, but Palumbo soon flees the ring.
02:19:01
Speaker
Back in, he tags Stasiak. After some page strikes, Stasiak hits a big boot, but page slides under a second and crotches Stasiak on the ring post. Nice, smooth counter into a belly-to-belly suplex by page. Stasiak narrowly avoids a diamond cutter, but eats a rock bottom that Tony calls a chokeslam, before Palumbo turns the tide with his jungle kick.
02:19:25
Speaker
Palumbo and Stasiak trade off battering Page with strikes, and a nice overhead throw by Palumbo. See, Shannon Moore, that's how you do it. That gets a two count. They keep cutting off Page as he crawls towards Nash, and Nash bellows to tell Robinson that they're choking Page. Trapped in the heel corner, Page fights back, but Palumbo hits him from behind, and Page collapses, headbutting a fallen Stasiak in the crotch.
02:19:50
Speaker
Sting often does a variant of that pass-out headbutt spot. It's funny that with all the stargates he's been on, we still saw Paige do it first. Yeah. He's here in spirit, Bob. Yeah, there you go. Paige gets his awesome discus lariat and eventually evades the tag and slumps out of the ring. Nash runs wild with big boots and side slams and sets up for the jackknife powerbomb, but Stasiak hits a flying clothesline from the top to give Blumbo two and a half. Outside, Sanders slugs Paige in the crotch.
02:20:18
Speaker
Sanders climbs the apron, which I guess is technically not in the ring, and Nash knocks him down, but Robinson is distracted and Stasiak clubs Nash with the title bell, then runs outside to try it on Page as WCW decides, you know, we didn't need to see Page counter that into a diamond cutter. No. To be fair, DP calls matches 100% of the fly, so they had no advantage in those spots. Yeah, right.
02:20:43
Speaker
Cameraman probably had notes stuck on his camera. Be sure to catch this at this precise time. Six and I have meant a new match. Look here. DDP stands for definitely don't plan. Yeah. Palumbo gets two off the belt shot on Nash as Paige pulls him out of the ring for the save.
Nash and Page's Victory
02:21:02
Speaker
Thriller's Mark Jindrak and Sean O'Hare attack, but Page hits the diamond cutter on Jindrak, then crotches O'Hare on the ropes. Why, none of this is worth a disqualification is beyond me since Robinson saw all or most of it. Nash hits a big boot and a jackknife powerbomb to Belumbo for the three count, the win, and the titles. Page and Nash fist bump as a disbelieving Sanders looks on. We do at least get a replay of that diamond cutter to Stasiak that we missed earlier.
02:21:28
Speaker
Nash grabs the microphone and invitates Scott Hall saying, hey yo, we got him again. I guess that's a nice tribute. Yeah. Thoughts on this one? This is one of the matches where it's really two kind of matches start together.
02:21:45
Speaker
Because other than the early flourish and a bit of back and forth with Kevin Nash, it quickly becomes the here's the DDP is in peril part of the match. Yes. Which is how it isn't planned out very well. I think you did really well by our involve. So we have complaints about that. It is very obvious. Here is this section of the match, which then end with a tag.
02:22:04
Speaker
And for me, there's a real juxtaposition between the two because, so you've watched DDP do all these varied moves and counters and back and forth sequences. Then Kevin Nash tags in and does punches and big boots and more big boots and more punches. There's a couple of side slams. Yeah. Keyword being a couple of side slams. Yes, yeah. Now I get what you're going for. Yes. And yeah, as you pointed out, there is a lot of interference in the match.
02:22:33
Speaker
I don't know why it doesn't lead to a DQ. Right? Yes. The ref didn't see it, obviously. Yeah. Poor Charles Robinson. We can only see something like two feet in front of his face. Guests are very Helen Keller. Yeah. Very ineffective. Well, if it happens outside the ring, it doesn't count. Is that it now? There's half of it. Oh my gosh.
02:22:54
Speaker
Well, okay, so we also introduced the idea that if Sanders got in the ring, it'd be DQ and Paige and Nash would win the titles, even though it definitely would be DQ if he got in the ring, I would think. And there's no pay after that. Nope. No, I thought that's what they were planning on doing is like the great lead up in the one step before and then one step in. Yeah, yeah. I thought they were just gonna like trick him into stepping in the ring and just like,
02:23:20
Speaker
Haha.
Match Dynamics Discussion
02:23:21
Speaker
Yeah, that would that would fit Kevin Nash. Honestly, I could see like deep in the diamond cutter on Jindrak and go for in Sanders, but doing a wade so Santa's mousely pushes away and his only recourse is to roll into the ring and then the ref sees him. Yeah. Yeah. He dodges into the ring and then they're like, yeah. Yeah. That'd be a fun way to play with that. Yeah. But they don't.
02:23:44
Speaker
The middle part was Paige I liked. His interaction was really, really good. He sells for them quite well. He has a varied offense. But when he's not in there at the beginning and when he's not in there at the end, just not as good. He's there to fight six people on the outside. And then Kevin Ashley just hit his third move with a match and win. Yeah, but they're big powerful moves. They are big powerful moves. Not taken away from that, but there's just no variety to it.
02:24:11
Speaker
I get that. But he did take off his shirt at the end. He did. Yeah. I was still on a little bit of a glacier high when I was watching this. I'm still thinking about that. I'm trying to fit all the characters. I'm like, okay, well, you know, Ray Ray can be this person and fight glaciers. You know, like, in this one, I'm like, I'm seeing DDP and Nash doing the hand signs. I'm like, okay, so Nash is a noobist. He's got the dog ears.
02:24:38
Speaker
And then when DDP does like that, he's got the wings and like the eye of Horus or Ra, you know, and he's looking up at the sun. I'm like, all right, we got the Egyptian angle. We already have a Stargate. That's probably like some subliminal message. I just had to make that connotation. I just figured it was like, you know, they have those portals in the later Mortal Kombats. I just thought it was just a representation of that. That's all. I didn't even think of it being a Stargate or, you know, Stargate Atlantis, not looking at it.
02:25:06
Speaker
The illusion was broken when they pulled in their opponents and I'm like, all right, well, let's just let's get on with the match and I'll stop theory crafting and everything.
02:25:18
Speaker
I do enjoy Nash and I do enjoy DDP. They were really the only things in the match that kind of kept me interested. Some of his best diamond cutters were outside the ring and just off camera. Yeah. Yeah. And I was a little disappointed in that. At least it wasn't a DQ. At least, you know, people you thought were going to win won, even if it wasn't the way that you thought it was going to happen. Yeah.
02:25:42
Speaker
No, I enjoyed the match, but nothing really stood out to me.
Storyline Logic Criticism
02:25:47
Speaker
It's what I expected from them, put that way. Yeah. For me, a basic tag match and a little repetitive.
02:25:56
Speaker
There's multiple points where they'll do a spot, then they'll do the same spot with a slight variation at the end. True. Palumbo and Stasiak feel very green, but what they can do, they do quite well. Still, most of the interest in this match is from DDP doing his usual excellent job selling and building up Sympathy and teasing slash hitting the Diamond Cutter. The end of the match pretty much shatters the DQ rules, though.
02:26:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah. The perfect event should have been DQ'd many times over for things done in full view of the referee, but they weren't. And it just doesn't make sense. And why wouldn't Flair just tell Sanders if you or the other thrillers interfere, the insiders win the titles. He limits it to Sanders for no other reason than that if he didn't, we couldn't have interference. Stories need to have an internal logic, and this one didn't. The match, though, was basic, but fine. And I got a couple nice diamond-cutter spots, so I'm happy.
Goldberg vs Lex Luger
02:26:49
Speaker
Oh, I liked if it had been O'Hara instead of Jasiak probably. I like him better. I like Sean O'Hara and I'm sad that he didn't end up in a match on this show.
02:26:59
Speaker
Yeah. Cut to sin, of course, where there is, they had another rematch between these teams only with Sean T. Zekker played with Sean O'Hare. Yay. Said duo, Plumbo and O'Hare are notable for being the final tag team champions in WCW. And because they accepted the contract buyout, they would be the inaugural WCW tag team champions in the WWF, holding them until August. It's actually quite a wave into the invasion. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah.
02:27:30
Speaker
Tony throws to a video package covering Goldberg vs. Luger. It's a little disjointed, but I guess seems to give decent coverage of the story. So our ninth match is Goldberg vs. Lex Luger in a no disqualification match with Goldberg's career on the line. Referee for this is Billy Silverman.
02:27:49
Speaker
Russo had come back at some point in 2000, but is now gone. So we're in this weird spot where storylines he set up are still playing out to some sort of conclusion and new twists and turns and whatnot. One of them he set up is that Goldberg had to win every match he was in, he had to start a new streak, and if he lost any matches, he would be fired.
02:28:12
Speaker
They're keeping that story going, I guess. I guess that was good enough to keep. It's a reasonable angle, honestly. Yeah, I don't know how you wear yourself out of that as well, so I guess it's probably the bigger issue. Yeah. So Mayhem had a match between Goldberg and Lueger, which was an old match. However, there's a spot where Goldberg goes to spear Lueger, and he pulls a referee in front to take the spear with him.
02:28:33
Speaker
He would eventually, of course, get pinned by Goldberg because, you know, he's still wrestling right now, and lose the match. But in the following night show, Luger would complain, trying to show altered footage without him pulling the ref, just the ref being hit, claiming that Goldberg should have been disqualified for attacking the referee. Yeah. And he should actually gain the one to beat Goldberg. Surprisingly, despite the fact that he agreed with the natural point thrillers, Rick Flair does not agree with Luke Sluger.
02:29:00
Speaker
Since he didn't get that match, he would get this match here, and to sort of get an edge, he would start attacking Dwayne Bruce, as we saw in promo earlier. We actually would wrestle him on a Nitro, I believe. There's a Luger-Dwayne Bruce match. And also a weird bit where Gorr was forced to wrestle Dwayne Bruce as well.
02:29:20
Speaker
There's a lot of Dwayne Bruce in this promo. It's like Bruce wants Luger so he goes to Sanders and Sanders tells him he has to do something for him. Yes. And it ends up neither of them realizing at first that they're gonna end up facing each other. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's just amazing this character is suddenly super important in the story coming out of nowhere. Good for him, I guess. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't take away from him. It's just funny that he's suddenly so integral to this story. Yeah.
02:29:46
Speaker
Michael Buffer does the introductions, calling this a no-holds-barred, no-disqualification contest in which anything goes. I was kidding before, man! Don't actually say all three of them! Luger seems bothered by the smoke in his entrance, waving it away. He doesn't get any of the cool lighting or anything else this time, and that makes his dramatic music feel kind of over the top.
02:30:10
Speaker
He does pull excellent sarcastic faces, mockingly interacting with the fans, though, which almost makes up for it. Goldberg gets his full usual entrance, and it's still as great as ever. Tony calls him the human cyborg. Which is one of the weirder nicknames I've heard. I mean, cyborgs are part human already, so... Yeah.
Match Wrap-Up Discussion
02:30:30
Speaker
Is that better or worse than Colin C. Vost and the Bionic Redneck? It's worse. Okay. Yeah.
02:30:37
Speaker
Because rednecks are not inherently bionic, and bionics are not inherently rednecks. Unless you pay them six million dollars. Yeah. Yes. A sign in the crowd wishes Goldberg a happy Hanukkah. Nice of you, random person. Yeah. Goldberg chases Luger out of the ring and beats him up outside while Buffer is still finishing his intro. The announcers have to retreat so fast that we briefly lose their audio.
02:31:05
Speaker
Rolling Luger back in, Goldberg dominates with almost casual clotheslines and a huge suplex toss and roars at the camera. He's always very good at knowing exactly where he needs to look when he's doing that. Easy shoulder slam by Goldberg and Luger tries to flee, but Goldberg chases him down, but Luger shoves him into the ring post. Goldberg dodges chair shots and Luger hits the ring post and drops the chair as Sarge comes down with Bagwell trying to convince Sarge not to get involved.
02:31:34
Speaker
Luger flees back in the ring, and Goldberg hits an amazing flying shoulder block from half across the ring. Goldberg tries the spear, but Luger pulls Silverman in the way. Bagwell rescues Silverman, and Goldberg tries again, but Luger ducks through the ropes, and Goldberg stops.
Bagwell's Role and Timing Issues
02:31:49
Speaker
I am not sure why, as he clearly still could have hit. Luger clocks Sarge and Goldberg with his brass knuckles, then takes off the knucks, even though they'd be totally legal to keep using in this match. It's about fair play, Bob. Oh yeah, right.
02:32:04
Speaker
He gets two and three quarters on a pin. Bagwell climbs to the second rope as Goldberg punches Luger in Luger Ducks. Bagwell it clearly intentionally hits his buff blockbuster on Goldberg, but everyone acts like it was an accident and Luger even throws Bagwell out of the ring. Weird spot. Why is he mad at Bagwell? Yeah, I'll get to that in a moment. Luger tries the torture rack, but Goldberg grabs the ropes to block and hits a spinning neck breaker as Bagwell helps Sarge up.
02:32:34
Speaker
Bagwell suddenly punches Sarge and chokes him as Goldberg spears Luger. Bagwell clearly sees Goldberg going to hit the jackhammer on Luger, but just kind of stands there waiting for it to happen, and Goldberg gets the three count and the win as Bagwell finally starts moving.
02:32:49
Speaker
Okay, so I suspect that the timing was all kinds of wrong on Bagwell's spots in this match, and that's why this seems really confusing story-wise. I think that the idea on the first spot is supposed to be that Bagwell appears to jump at Luger while he's still standing, but then Luger ducks just in time and Bagwell hits Goldberg instead with the buff blockbuster.
02:33:09
Speaker
But because Bagwell jumps too late or Luger ducks too early, it becomes obvious it was intentional. So why Luger's throwing him out is that what Luger is supposed to have seen is Bagwell just tried to attack me and I countered it. Not Bagwell intentionally helped me, but it ends up looking like. Then at the ending, I think Bagwell's just supposed to be too busy with Sarge to notice Luger's about to lose, but he looks too early. So that's what I'm guessing. There's no way that this was how it was supposed to be performed. I hope not.
02:33:40
Speaker
Bagwell climbs in and clocks Goldberg several times with a chair, then laughs and does a little dance. He helps Luger out as Sarge comes back in to check on Goldberg, who has by that time already recovered. Way to kill the drama there.
02:33:54
Speaker
Goldberg goes and retrieves a kid from the crowd and carries him around on his shoulders posing for pictures with the kid's parents. That was really heartwarming to see, I do have to say. It's a little weird juxtaposition. It is. I'm so angry. I kind of wish they'd done that before the match. Yeah. So it didn't like mess with the story, but I don't know. Well, they did talk about him spending all day and make a wish. So I thought that was good.
02:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was a nice thing to do, and it's really cute, but it is a weird juxtaposition of, oh, I've just been betrayed and beaten with a chair, and I'm cool with it. I'm just gonna go and hang out with this kid and his family, you know? Thoughts on this one?
02:34:33
Speaker
I did like some of the action. Goldberg had some, as usual, good moves. He never quite fully forms a match for me. It's a series of moves, but he definitely relies on someone else to make it all come together. Luger is fine at that, but it's nothing special.
02:34:51
Speaker
It's not like DDP or something like that. You can really get a complete story out of it necessarily. Or even weirdly enough, I've surprised and say Nash, I thought their match, other than the nonsense was structured really well. They had a good back and forth. Yeah,
Sid Vicious vs Scott Steiner
02:35:04
Speaker
we all, I think, rather liked that match up until the ending moments. Yes. My bigger note was that the story supersedes the action again, and it is just as confusing. Yes.
02:35:16
Speaker
ignoring the explanation you gave of just them messing the timing up when it was, what is up with Bagwell and Luger? Yes. Because they mess up the timing so much, it becomes a really, really confusing story where it looks like Bagwell intentionally helped Luger and Luger knew it, but then Luger just decided to beat up Bagwell. But Bagwell was like, nah, we're cool. We're still friends. And it's like, and his fighting was hard. What is going on? Yeah. Yeah, it's so screwed up.
02:35:45
Speaker
And because of all that, it really takes away from the match. Absolutely, yeah. As short as it is, the action you get in Spurge is good. It's just, yeah, it's so much nonsense around it, it's just hard to focus on it. Yeah, you're taken out of the match by trying to figure out what is actually happening. Yes.
02:36:03
Speaker
I really liked the intro to the match where, you know, you do the normal thing where someone retreats and they expect the person to be, you know, still gloating and trying to get some crowd cheers in and everything. The bell's wrong when they're both outside. And I liked that. Goldberg in the beginning looked like unstoppable. Simple, no wasted movements. There was little counterplay at that point.
02:36:30
Speaker
As far as the parts where you're questioning Bagwell's involvement, I thought the announcers did a good job of saying, look, it was an accident. He meant to go for them. I never really had the thought that it was intentional or whatever at that point.
02:36:50
Speaker
That lasted all like 20 seconds, but it was still like, all right, well, whatever. And I thought that, at least for me, it played up how resilient Goldberg was. Like he was able to recover from that. But yeah, when everyone started turning on each other, I thought this was silly.
02:37:09
Speaker
And the whole Luger thing attacking Buff mirrored the use of the Brass Nux. I thought at some point that maybe Luger had some sort of pride. I'm not going to use the weapon to win. And I don't need Buff Bagwell to win either. Because Luger can become a heal and still have some redeeming qualities. For me, I thought that he was just saying, I got this. I don't need any more interference.
02:37:37
Speaker
Honestly, I thought it was Luger just trying to get a clean win. You know, a cleaner win. I can see that. I can see that. Yeah, I wanted to like this more than I did. Goldberg does his usual high intensity offense and it looks good. But Luger barely does anything other than take a few swings with weapons. It just feels like this could have been Goldberg versus anybody, honestly. There's very little sense of Lex Luger in this match other than the torture rack attempt at the end.
02:38:06
Speaker
I wish this had felt more even, or at least more complex. Instead, it's just Goldberg beating Luger up, interrupted only by brief chair shots or brass knuckle shots from Luger. It'd be fine as
Starrcade 2000 Review
02:38:16
Speaker
a Goldberg comeback, but not as the entire story of the match. Add the tremendously screwed up Bagwell spots, and this match is kind of a boring mess to me. At least it was short. It was pretty disappointing to me, honestly.
02:38:31
Speaker
You know what would have helped the match is if you have Dwayne Bruce being followed by Buff Bagwall and they're both being followed by Dean Oakland. Everyone in the backstage is walking out. Yeah, just train of all the backstage people. Yeah. Out a few seconds later is Glacier who starts slapping hands with the crowd. Yeah. It could have also been better if Luger used the brass nuxes only like a last resort.
02:38:57
Speaker
I can't do anything to Goldberg. It was just more like, this is when I'm supposed to use it. It wasn't like he was being pinned or held or whatever and then he pulled up. It wasn't a strategic place where he had to use them. I thought that would add a little more drama to it and make him seem more desperate. But that didn't happen.
02:39:17
Speaker
Like you were saying, Al, that's one of the points where it feels like you've got the spots, but you don't actually have all the connective thread that brings this match together and makes a full story out of this. It is a bit disjointed. Yeah.
02:39:30
Speaker
Yeah, it seems like, too, Luger has kind of lost all his mojo. Because he used to have this full entrance. Well, he used to have his cool, silly music. And then he had the more dramatic entrance he got before. And now he doesn't have that, and he doesn't have his longer hair. No, yeah. He looks like Brock Samson, though. I'll give him that. Yes, he did. OK, Brock Samson.
02:39:52
Speaker
It doesn't feel like Luger anymore, really. Yeah, it feels so strange. It's like I'll give him that he was doing, you know, some excellent crowd work on the way to the ring still. But it feels like... I don't even want to say that it feels like he's being lazy or anything, because it's not that. It feels like just everything that makes him Luger has been kind of stripped away at this moment. He's the damaged package. Yeah. Would not sign for it.
02:40:19
Speaker
Thinking as you're describing the wrap-up when you see Bagwell and Luger leaving would have actually made it extra funny and it's been great as if Bagwell starts to walk away stops return to the ring unique like a weapon. He pulls out
Wrap-Up Thoughts
02:40:35
Speaker
his big top hat. Oh my gosh He just puts it on so you know he's properly buff Bagwell again. I would have turned the show off Al
02:40:44
Speaker
You don't love the idea that he pulls that stupid hat out of his outfit. I hate that hat. I know. But that way you know he's evil with Bagwell because you wear the hat again. So despite the confusion of how exactly this whole thing is supposed to work, this leads to the forming of the classic tag team totally buffed. To clarify, that is totally buffed as in past tense, not totally buffed as in present tense. Right. It's kind of weird. I don't understand that at all.
02:41:12
Speaker
Maybe it's like buffed as in like waxing a car. Yeah. You're looking at your, yeah, looking at your car, your new four as well. They've been totally buffed. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, why is it buffed, not buff? That's, that's weird. Probably copyright. Starcade. Yeah, true. This leads to them challenging Goldberg to a match at Sin, which is a tag team match featuring Dwayne Bruce. All right.
02:41:41
Speaker
Now Goldberg's got a tag partner defending his career. Okay. We cut to a video package covering Scott Steiner's Reign of Terror as World Champion and Flair bringing back Sid Vicious to face him at Starrcade.
Closing Remarks
02:41:55
Speaker
So our final match is the Millennium Man Sid Vicious versus Big Papa Pump Scott Steiner with Medeja for Steiner's WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The referee for this match is Mark Slick Johnson.
02:42:11
Speaker
Scott Steiner is now the world champion, obviously, and not Malaysia, by the way, she wore the belt. He wanted the previous show where he dethroned champion Booker T and seemingly took him out for quite a while with a vicious attack afterwards. Following that, he was challenged on television shows by Sting, who, as we've noted, takes a nice break around Starrcade during this run storyline-wise injury taken out by Scott Steiner.
02:42:40
Speaker
So fortunately, Ric Flair brought in, I guess, the next best thing, which is to Vicious. That is not the next best thing. He's like, wow, that attack was very vicious. Wait. Yes. I've got it. That Ric Flair is in the bag listening to Sex Pistols album. He's like, wait a second. I know a guy with the same name. Who has the same haircut as Luger? Stan Lane. That's true.
02:43:09
Speaker
Oddly fast-paced choral music plays underneath Michael Buffer's intro. If he could hear that, it had to be hard to resist talking rhythm to the music. Sizz music is actually kind of nice, but it doesn't really scream crazy guy. More classic rock sounding. Steiner, on the other hand, has a tremendously annoying siren.
02:43:31
Speaker
He and Mideja wear chain mail and she carries a lead pipe. Minor interesting note, Buffer calls Steiner the WCW heavyweight world champion rather than his more usual WCW heavyweight champion of the world. So he's the champion of some place called the heavyweight world? No, he's the world champion of WCW heavyweight. Oh. It's the spin-off of WCW International. Yes.
02:43:57
Speaker
Full of random callbacks. Just interesting, it's not the way he normally does that. Yeah, yeah. Even he's tuned out at this point. Yeah.
02:44:05
Speaker
Steiner and Vicious trade off punching, and Vicious counters an atomic drop by being too tall. Yeah! Vicious side slam for one, and Steiner rolls out, then comes in and flexes as Vicious pulls a hilarious, oh yeah, kind of face. Steiner overpowers Vicious on a test of strength. Eventually, Vicious powers out and flips him over for two. Nice Vicious leg drop for two. Vicious clotheslines Steiner out, but while Johnson isn't looking, Mideja clubs Sid with her lead pipe.
02:44:33
Speaker
Then Steiner batters Sid with a chair and full view of Johnson, and the announcers explain that Johnson isn't calling for the DQ because it's a world title match. Why did disqualification rules exist if you won't use them? By that logic, every match in the show has been a world title match, apparently. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Different worlds, like Mario, different worlds, and they're all champions.
02:44:52
Speaker
Back in, Steiner shows off with push-ups. Steiner backbreaker and a nice belly-to-belly suplex, and he gets the Steiner recliner but Vicious gets the ropes, so Steiner just hits a vertical suplex and puts it on again.
02:45:04
Speaker
Vicious powers free and dodges a Medeja splash, so she hits Steiner, and Vicious gets a choke slam for two. Vicious uses a Cobra Clutch, but Steiner knocks Johnson out. Vicious hits a Cobra Clutch slam and covers despite having clearly seen Johnson go down. He has poor luck with that referee.
02:45:23
Speaker
He does. Mideja distracts Vicious so Steiner can hit him with the lead pipe as Charles Robinson takes over as referee. Steiner gets two off the lead pipe shots even though Robinson had to have seen those as he ran in. Vicious's kickout does get big cheers. Jeff Jarrett in but Vicious dodges his guitar shot and Jarrett nails Steiner, again, right in front of Robinson.
02:45:44
Speaker
Vicious gets two, but Jarett pulls Robinson out, but Robinson ducks a Jarett clothesline and runs back in to count another two and three quarters. How often do we get to see a referee actually dodge? It's extremely rare, yeah. Yeah, that was kind of amazing to see. Steiner slugs Vicious in the crotch and hits a t-bone suplex, then puts on the Steiner recliner again, basically choking Vicious, then Vicious passes out.
02:46:10
Speaker
Robinson doesn't bother with checking the arm and just calls for the bell, awarding the match to Steiner. Steiner opposes with the big gold bell, but one of the side plates is actually pop partially free. Thoughts on this one?
02:46:25
Speaker
Uh, my great summary was this is a clunky power match. They definitely do nice slam, really more Steiner than Vicious as a whole, but that could come with other matches. A match that doesn't feel cohesive. It's just Steiner will hit us some sort of suplex and pose a bit and then grab them and do a different move.
02:46:45
Speaker
There's no story like attacking one body part or the back and forth thing. It's just, yeah, it's weird. And there's interesting spots, like the fact that Sebastian's just too tall, so the knee just doesn't come up and hit him in the groin during that move. That did crack me up, I do have to say, yeah.
02:47:00
Speaker
It's no invincible ab spot, but it's close. No, no. The match just has no solid flow to it, because any time something starts to happen, someone interferes, or there's an attack, or something, it never gets to keep pace. Maybe the two couldn't keep a solid pace, and that's to recover that. Like they even wrestled a 10-minute chain wrestling power match. So let's do a couple moves, and we'll put pauses in there, so it looks like a whole match.
02:47:29
Speaker
even though we're working only like a third of the match, really. Yeah. It's interesting to see Charles Robinson dodge the attack and going for the pin.
02:47:39
Speaker
especially after he's pulled out. A lot of times the pull out thing knocks him out, like they'll pull him all the way out to the floor or pull him in and immediately hit him. Jared was just being really sporting and giving him a moment to decide whether or not to take the blow or not. We'll be totally honest there, if that had been the pinfall when he charged back in, Charles Robinson would be my MVP. Oh yeah. Just for the unusual nature of that spot, yeah. Yeah, I granted that.
02:48:05
Speaker
Yeah, there's just way too much outside interference between Madeja and Jeff Jarrett who's back again for some reason. There's stuff that doesn't quite flow together like Steiner is completely knocked out for a very long count from the guitar shot and then just pop back up with a low blow like, oh, I'm not unconscious now. Yep.
02:48:27
Speaker
I have expected Jared to pull the ref out again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very long sell of that. So then suddenly being up, it just makes no sense. Yeah. Nevermind the fact that that thing is balsa wood and shatters when like the wind hits it. But people got to sell it like they shot the shotgun blast the face. Yeah. It's not that good, unfortunately. Yeah.
02:48:51
Speaker
I don't put a lot of blame on Sid in this. If Sid does what he can, obviously, if this had been a lot of the people who had been in an interesting match, people like Bret Hart could have made this really good, but it feels like it's been booked to cover for both of them. So no one really looks good because of that.
02:49:08
Speaker
One of the few matches where I actually saw like a test of strength look good. Okay. Yeah. Maybe I'm just used to Hogan doing it, but it is a legacy move. It works for Sid Vicious and I think it makes it work for Scott Steiner here or Papa Pump.
02:49:26
Speaker
They sell it really well, you know, they're all very vascular. Yes, yes. It does look like a test of power through freakish people that vaguely resemble humanoids.
02:49:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's what he said. Although Steiner's arm has that. Oh my gosh. It's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know, but I mean, like you think of Hulk and abomination or like doomsday and Superman, like they're okay. Yeah. It is more, it is over the top big. It's sold well. Yes. Even though it is longer, probably than those three bear hugs, it still was better. And I think that's the only reason why this match was longer than the last one because of the test of strength. Pretty much. Yeah.
02:50:09
Speaker
Like Goldberg, you know, they really put Steiner to be indestructible in this match. You know, he took some hits and had a lot of interference, but he popped back. There was a lot of similarities in this match than there was the last one. Yeah, it's tricky. It's tricky thing with him because he has to be this super dangerous guy who can throw you around the ring. But then once you start getting offense, then he has to get protected from pinfalls. It's a little tricky to manage.
02:50:39
Speaker
Well, like, the Jared, oh no. But it was done pretty funnily. I thought it was a decent match, especially with, you know, Sid coming out of retirement kind of. I wanted to give him some grace on that. So it was the best match it could have been for Sid. I think that giving him the edge where Steiner gets hit from a missed interference or a guitar, random errant guitar.
02:51:08
Speaker
You know, it gave it an opportunity for him to kind of pull ahead, even if he didn't win. A tremendously basic match, I thought.
02:51:19
Speaker
It's not that there's any mistakes in the action, it's just that there's nothing much going on with this one. It doesn't feel at all epic or interesting. Not at all worthy of being a main event. The way the story just entirely ignores disqualification rules really hurts it too. The Heels don't even try to hide their cheating. Steiner and Jarrett repeatedly openly hit Sid with the chair, a lead pipe, or a guitar, actually on Steiner in that case, in full view of either Johnson or Robinson.
02:51:47
Speaker
It's weird, right? We've had two shows where we asked why the world title match had to be no DQ because nobody did anything DQ worthy. That's true, yeah. Now, it has DQ rules, but the heals blatantly and obviously do things to draw a DQ and just don't. Like Scott's aren't just punching the referee just in the face. Right, yeah. He didn't go, oh, I slipped. It just went bam. Yeah. Yeah, there is that too. Yes.
02:52:12
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Basic, pretty dull action combined with completely ignoring the rules makes this a bad match for me and a really poor end to this Starrcade. The follow-up to this is that Scott Steiner of course has a Keep Defending His World title. As noted, Jeff Jarrett promoted to be World Championship contender. They hold a series of matches to determine who's going to be the other contender. Sid ends up winning that. So now you've got Jeff Jarrett and Sid and Scott Steiner.
02:52:41
Speaker
However, CEO Ric Flair throws in a extra bonus, which a mysterious figure is also going to be part of the match. A weird masked fully covered man who starts interfering in affairs leading up to the match. We have a mystery, I'll say mystery partner, but we have a mystery competitor. I'm sure this match will end well for everybody. Yeah. That match may be one of the truest expressions of the January curse. Yeah, that's fair.
02:53:11
Speaker
As Steiner flexes, Tony quickly signs off and Starrcade 2000 is done. That was sudden. Overall thoughts on Starrcade 2000. So it's a show where there's lots of matches, likely less than we've had in the past. Yeah. It's not a 13 match show or 12 match show or anything. I feel like there's still, you could have cut one or two matches. I'm not sure. So it's one, but overall I think you could have.
02:53:36
Speaker
Uh, the problem with the show is that there's no match that I think foils up to potential in one way or another. I don't think any of them are truly terrible. There are some shows where we have a match that just absolutely is not good. I don't think anything in here is really that bad, but nothing in here is also as good as it could be and what it should be, quite frankly. So it's a disappointing show more than is a bad show.
02:54:04
Speaker
There's only like two matches that don't have outside interference in them. And it's actually where you think about them. So it's basically just the matches that are actually no DQ and hardcore matches. Yeah, true. No one interferes in the ambulance match. No one really interferes that notably in the hardcore match with Terry Funk and Crowbar. Definitely is involved a little bit. It's not really notable. I mean, Leah Meowne interferes in the one match free notably to pull David Noble off. Yeah. Does screaming count? Screaming definitely interfered with my enjoyment.
02:54:35
Speaker
But it's not like other matches where there's someone running in or... Yeah, I get ya. It's just a weird thing that matches where it's open season are the ones that no one bothers. That's true, yeah. It's just a lot of weird things that don't quite make sense, whether the travel confusing interference, the fact that the NoDQ things don't quite make sense. You have matches that change halfway through. Probably more than one of those is ridiculous.
02:55:03
Speaker
The parts that should be strong are just not strong enough. Nothing that truly elevates the show to what needs to be, especially given that we know this is the final Starrcade. Obviously they didn't know that. But yeah, nothing feels like, oh, this is the final Starrcade. At least we have something big to go out on.
02:55:22
Speaker
I mean, oh, I didn't like the way the story went. If you had had something along with, say, the old Kevin Nash Goldberg break the streak thing happened on something on that level of importance happened to the show, you'd be like, okay, I don't like where the story goes, but at least there's a big angle on Starrcade. Yeah. The problem is they put the title on Scott Steiner right before Starrcade.
02:55:45
Speaker
is someone's in mayhem. So there's no long story build commenting at Starrcade here. It's just he's champion now and we're starting stories. Yeah. And that's part of the problem.
02:56:00
Speaker
The latter match should not be a highlight. Yeah. If I was going to sum up the StarK2000, it would be misdirection. There is, like you said, a lot of interference. There's a lot of storyline driven matches rather than them being good matches.
02:56:22
Speaker
You can tell that there's a lot of effort, there's a lot of trying, there's a lot of energy, and a lot of matches. I mean, I think each one basically had some redeeming element to it. But at the same time, there was always some sort of flow issue or too many missed spots to really put it up there as a good starrcade. It was sort of a middle ground for me. Other than the names that were used, pretty unremarkable.
02:56:51
Speaker
It's got a lot of star power and you would think it would be more done with star power. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. This was just a Kade for me.
02:56:59
Speaker
This is Starrcade, but the only one are. Right. There you go. I forget which Starrcade it was, but they had some World War video package where they were talking about the thing that was coming up the next pay-per-view. And that should not be a highlight. I think that was the highlight for me for that Starrcade. Yeah, yeah. I should not be seriously considering Glacier as my MVP. Yes. It doesn't even appear. I am. Or speak.
02:57:27
Speaker
No, I get you. Yeah. Yeah. That promo woke me up as well. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. The rampant sexism and other stuff that, that, that it is what it is. It doesn't add anything to the show, but that way for sure.
02:57:45
Speaker
For sure, yeah. Absolutely. And go from there, take what you will. I didn't even chuckle with the silliness of it. I think they were trying to be a little bit more edgy, trying to get more, try to reclaim some of that fan base. They had to have known it was waning, so they had to change things up. Bagwell probably showed up with his top hat full of ideas and they just grabbed them.
02:58:09
Speaker
Jeff Jarrett's like, I got two slips of paper. I might as well just add these together and I want to have the bunkhouse. Yeah. So, you know, they were trying to change the formula a little bit, but I think they just had a bad mix. Yeah, for sure. And so while I felt like I've eaten a meal, it's not one I would go back to again and visit anytime soon. Yeah. I gotcha. Yeah, this was just a show.
02:58:39
Speaker
It's not an awful show. It's not a good show. It's just kind of there. It feels really weird to say that. This is the last ever Starrcade. The final show of a series that's run since 1983. It feels like this should be big. It feels like this should be epic. But it isn't.
02:59:02
Speaker
It makes sense. It's not like they knew this was the final starcade, but it feels so small, so inconsequential, so simple, and that just feels wrong.
02:59:14
Speaker
I know it's not fair to expect something special based on events that hadn't happened yet at the time of the show, but it's hard to avoid. Even without that sense of its place in history, that sense of finality, this show would be a disappointment. With it, it's kind of crushing or deflating to watch it. I wanted this show to be more than what it was. It's not fair to it, but it is what it is.
02:59:37
Speaker
And what it is is pretty boring. After a good enough start with the ladder match, it just trots out basic match after basic match with no one really doing anything exceptional or particularly involving. That's despite actually having some good variety in terms of match types. I will definitely credit the show with that. It keeps changing things up. It's just that even as it does, it doesn't feel like anything's rising above a moderately acceptable level.
03:00:03
Speaker
There's nothing to really sink your teeth into, nothing to really enjoy or get excited about. You can spend a few hours watching it, but you'll forget it the next day.
03:00:12
Speaker
Except for some of the perplexing storyline stuff, of course. Rules and stories are just kind of confusing tonight, from the way tag rules suddenly disappeared or appeared, to the way disqualifications were just kind of ignored repeatedly, to the strange interference spots by Chavo Guerrero and Buff Bagwell. I just didn't know what to make of a lot of events on the show. It felt strange to watch, like I was constantly short one detail that I needed to really understand it.
03:00:39
Speaker
That sort of feeling kept taking me out of the show and made it hard to get into matches. Whenever I did, something strange would happen and I'd distance myself to think that through. Presentation has generally taken a hit this year. The simple set and often underwhelming entrances make the show seem small and unimportant, and the direction goes into overdrive with missing important shots.
03:01:03
Speaker
Segments like Madden trying to pick up Sanders Promo on his own headset mic just so there wasn't enough thought put into how to stage things or how events should be run. Promo packages are positioned pretty well, but often don't really tell you much about the story going into a match.
03:01:19
Speaker
The announced team doesn't have much chemistry. Madden is particularly bad. He seems to be trying to go for a Bobby Heenan sort of act, but where Heenan tended to have clever jokes and quick and sharp delivery, Madden tends more towards sexual references and dirty humor, delivered with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball crashing through a building.
03:01:39
Speaker
The announcers do manage some good discussions in the middle of some matches, but it's all crippled by them having to work around the jokes rather than work with the jokes. And even at their best, they just don't fit together that well. The best commentator is wrestler Chava Guerrero. Yeah, that's true, actually.
03:01:57
Speaker
Starrcade 2000 isn't a mess or a disaster. It just isn't really anything. It feels like something you could have just seen on any given episode of Nitro or Thunder. There's nothing special about it, nothing that stands out, nothing that makes you say, wow. It's not an awful show. We've seen some worse Starrcades.
03:02:16
Speaker
But it's just sad. Despite having a lot of new talent on it, this doesn't feel like a show about potential. It feels like a show about running in place. Yes. There's no sense of momentum, of building, of trying to climb higher. It feels like WCW is satisfied with where it is. And where it is is not good.
03:02:37
Speaker
I do agree with you. You can even notice that they're satisfied where they're at. If you listen to the commentary, usually when they say it's the granddaddy of them all or whatever, I think they only say it twice the whole time, but usually they do so much of making it seem grandiose in previous arcades, up to the point where we had the NWO maybe. After that, it was kind of like we're anti-establishment and then we never really reestablished anything.
03:03:06
Speaker
you know, they don't have anything to build from it. They just talk about the matches and rather than the entire event as a whole, it was really annoying in the first several where they kept on, like every single one seemed like they were pitching the show for people that were already attending the show. And I know they were just working it in, but it felt like there was no, no gravitas. There wasn't any pomp or there's a big pop-a-pomp in no circumstance.
03:03:34
Speaker
There's a lot of big names and they did nothing. They did not put them in lights. They put them in Christmas lights, if any. They didn't really build anyone up. And at least they had a few promos that, you know, helped. Like actually the best promo was straight into the thing. It was like, I won't be a stepping stone. You know, I won't, you know, that was the most genuine in something that like, wow, okay, there's some, some meaning to this whole thing. I'm not going to go down without a fight.
03:04:00
Speaker
And that should be like that for every single big match. Yeah. And that wasn't even a big match. I mean, I guess it was, but you know what I mean? It wasn't like the main event. Yes. Yeah. Gotcha. So it's disappointing. For sure. All right, Match of the Night and MVP. I was so decisive about it that I didn't write it on my printout.
03:04:26
Speaker
So I'm sort of working without safety here. High point match wise for me is obviously the ladder match. Well, it has some terrifying spots in it and some spots that just don't make sense logically because they're setting up all the stuff. It's still really entertaining and it's still notable. It's probably the match, I'll maybe think of the most from the show, for better or for worse. I guess I could make a case for the Lance Stormer's Miller match, but
03:04:55
Speaker
Even though it has a story to it that interference kind of is the way and it's not 100% smooth and it's just has that whole part in the middle with the ref and all that. Honestly, the only match that I don't have really issued with other than me thinking it could have been better is the ambulance match between Mike Awesome and Bim Bim Bigelow, which I was not expecting to pick going into the show before I watched it. I was like, something's going to happen when these matches, but no, honestly,
03:05:23
Speaker
It all comes together. I don't have an issue with the moving to the emails in the back again. I thought it worked fine. I thought they worked with the props are given without adding new props for no reason. And they had good character work throughout, especially Mike Awesome. Ben Bigelow didn't add a whole lot, but he didn't detract from it. And then they built nicely to that creative finish where he'd not even have a thing. Mike Awesome seems legitimately surprised and happy. And he, I think still he realizes he's won.
03:05:51
Speaker
Even though it's not the most important match in the show and it shouldn't be the most noble match for me I had to go with that one. Okay, so ambulance match match of the night. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah MVP I could see myself being in case for DUP because he made the most of that tag match he was touching part of that I Am very tempted to give it to him. I was trying to think when I rewatched the latter matches its last match I rewatched for this
03:06:20
Speaker
can I find one person throughout that match, out of the six or seven if you cannot leave me out, that didn't have a terrifying screw up, or some weird, silly thing, I can maybe engage Shane Helms, but even thinking back at it and then watch, in the recap, discussing it, there's not one big Shane Helms moment, because so much happens in that match with those people. So it'd be kind of cheating to give it to him as much as I like Shane Helms, and I know where it's going with him.
03:06:48
Speaker
It's like, honestly, you should do what most people would normally do instead of this and stick with someone from the match of the night, which would make perfect sense. So I feel like I'm probably going to go back to Mike Awesome. Okay. I played a character right. He just moves perfectly well and he made it all work. Oh, yeah. He did an excellent job with what he had tonight. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm going with. Okay. John.
03:07:13
Speaker
There's a lot of disjointed things tonight, a lot of disappointments, a lot of interference. I don't want to agree with Al, but those were the two most... No, no, I want to have some variety. Yeah. Yeah, I gotcha.
03:07:29
Speaker
I actually like General Erections promo, but it definitely wasn't a good match. No. I did like the ambulance match and the ladder match as well. I still see that stupid rolling punches.
03:07:47
Speaker
and push into the ladder. But for my match tonight, I'm going to just swerve a little bit to the left and I'm going to say DDP and Nash. Okay. Just because I was hoping for that Eye of Raw thing. No. No, I thought that DDP did a great job. It was entertaining like some of the other matches weren't.
03:08:17
Speaker
Sure. Even though Nash didn't have a lot of play until the end.
03:08:22
Speaker
They weren't just trying to make things happen. It seemed a little more organic than some others. I did not have to jump through any logistical hoops in order to like it. Okay. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. I can see that. I didn't have to worry about too many convoluted storylines to get there or deal with anything other than we're going to retain this. And you got a little bit of star power there.
03:08:50
Speaker
And my MVP, and it's between either Ernest the Cat Miller. I know that's a strange one to do, but he was the only one that I really enjoyed watching the whole time he was on there, even though he looked very confused with what he was supposed to do. And I loved the dancing, and there was no joy in the show.
03:09:14
Speaker
And he brought a little bit of levity other than craziness. Yeah. And Glacier. And I'm going to have to give it to Glacier because Glacier promised me something. Okay. That I wanted more than anything else in the show. Fair enough. Yeah, I know.
03:09:35
Speaker
Fair enough, yeah. After Glacier, I did not care what matches happened. I was trying to fit it in a world that worked with Glacier. There you go. And this is all about climate change. There you go. We need more glaciers in our life. Yep. All right, no. Yeah, I'll give you that one. Sorry.
03:09:59
Speaker
No, no, no. I mean, I will honestly say that I considered that myself. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Yeah.
03:10:08
Speaker
For me, this is one of those shows where I have to remind myself that this is Match of the Night. I had a lot of problems with it, but I'm still going to go for the opening six-man ladder match. Really? Despite some weird rules, confusion, and a kind of strange but intriguing ending, a load of botches, and a setup that took suspension of disbelief and hurled it off a ladder scaffold, that match had so much athleticism and so many creative spots that it still managed to impress. Sure. It's a tempered sort of impressed feeling, but it's still there.
03:10:38
Speaker
Let's see, you know we can do better with this in the future if you get a chance. Right. Yeah, I got you. But definitely still seeing the potential for me there, yeah. Sure. Nothing else tonight really did that. Most matches were kind of okay, but nothing raised to another level other than that first match for me. For my MVP, man, I had a hard time with this.
03:11:03
Speaker
Yeah. Chavo Guerrero, I guess. It's weird to say, but he did a good job building up the teams while still acting as the heel on opening match commentary. He did a good job making something of the weird two number one contenders angle, and a good, albeit very confusing, job with the Rexion Douglas match. Much like Jarrett last year, Chavo did a good job with the material he's been given, and it's not his fault that the material he was given sometimes wasn't that great.
03:11:33
Speaker
So I enjoyed his contributions to the show and I thought he did a good job with a kind of complicated character that they had him doing. Sure enough, yeah.
03:11:41
Speaker
honorable mentions. Number one, Charles Robinson for actually dodging Jared's attempt to knock him out, which was crazy unusual. Yeah, for sure. And number two, a really nice older lady in the front row in the red jacket who was against all odds, having the time of her life snapping photographs with her little camera. I was really enjoying watching her. She was clearly having a good time. So there was that.
03:12:06
Speaker
That's just interesting variety there. Yeah. Yeah introduction for their own logic and own reasons Yeah, I mean we've we've had shows in the past where none of us had the same as another I think but this is the most varied. I think we bet. Oh, yeah Yeah, it's neat. Yeah, appreciate that There will be no Starrcade 2001 no
03:12:28
Speaker
In January 2001, Museum Media Ventures, working with Eric Bischoff, made an offer to purchase WCW from AOL Time Warner. Though the company would have new ownership, its television shows would continue. Things were starting to look up. But in March 2001, AOL Time Warner executive Jamie Kellner, made head of the company's Turner Broadcasting division, cancel WCW's television shows.
03:12:55
Speaker
According to a spokesman, WCW was, quote, not consistent with the upscale brands that they built at TBS and TNT. And so it wouldn't be carried anymore. That killed the not yet finalized deal as backers pulled out when it became clear their new wrestling company would not even have access to a television audience anymore. Yeah. And that left an opening for Vince McMahon.
03:13:21
Speaker
In March 2001, WCW was purchased by its primary competitor. And at long last, the war was finally unquestionably lost. The final Monday Nitro, aired March 26, 2001, would open with a triumphant McMahon proclaiming his victory. The show would try its best to do honor to WCW's legacy in the midst of setting up WWF storylines.
03:13:47
Speaker
The actual final WCW show aired, however, was WCW Worldwide on March 31, 2001. The Starrcade name would eventually be resurrected by the WWF, now the WWE, for special events starting in 2017. So, the final WCW Starrcade. A series that has run since 1983 has reached its conclusion. The first ever professional wrestling supercard has met its end.
03:14:19
Speaker
That wraps up our review of Starrcade 2000, but we're not quite done with Starrcade as a whole. Next episode, we're going to take some time to discuss the series, the highs and lows, our favorite moments, and probably some of our least favorite moments. Oh yeah. And what we've drawn from the series. What was Starrcade for Jim Crockett promotions and WCW? Were there any unifying themes to the shows?
03:14:48
Speaker
So, our final Starrcade discussion. But while Starrcade may be ending, Let's Go to the Ring will continue looking at WCW series by series. What will we be covering next? Find out next time. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. Links will be available in the episode description.
03:15:12
Speaker
Follow us for episode announcements and other show details and share your own thoughts about the Star Cades as we go through. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or TuneIn. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us.
03:15:34
Speaker
Many thanks to OSW review for attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling. Engaze at the stars and wonder.
03:16:03
Speaker
after a rection splash. Man, that sounded bad, actually. Sorry. Go on. Rection does a splash. Dang it. I wasn't thinking about that until you said that earlier, John, about them being careful for announcing it.