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Episode 17: Starrcade '99
30 Plays5 years ago
It's time for a look at Starrcade '99 - but don't blink or you might miss it zipping on by. WCW's crammed a four hour show into three hours by just rushing though everything at a million miles per hour. Still, in the midst of the whirlwind you can spot Norman Smiley looking for his lost dignity, Sting learning an important life lesson about trust, not one but two near-disastrous powerbombs, the blight upon humanity called Oklahoma (not the state or the musical, mind), and Kevin Nash and Sid Vicious facing off in a match with probably one of the most famous endings in WCW history. For all that 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
00:00:00
Speaker
Air Canada. Wow, that sounded weird in my headset. I thought like it sounded like a car was going by a high velocity outside, man.
Introduction to 'Let's Go to the Ring'
00:00:39
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 here with two guys whose year-long feud will have nothing to do with tonight's show, the leader of the NWO Black and Blue, Alec Phrygian. I'm pretty sore, I'm idly. And the leader of the NWO Scorpahawk pack, John Mullins. Me, you stingers. Stay strong.
00:01:08
Speaker
How's it going tonight, guys? Good, good. I'm doing all right. All right.
Starrcade 99's Struggles Against WWF
00:01:14
Speaker
Well, tonight we're taking a look at Starcade 99, the battle to end the millennium. No, it isn't. Starcade 99 was held on December 19th, 1999 at the MCI Center in Washington, DC, in front of a very much not sold out crowd of 11,799 fans, 8,582 paid,
00:01:38
Speaker
We're down about 4,000 people in the same building. I think they're worried about Y2K.
00:01:47
Speaker
I do have to say, I didn't really, really notice in the crowd shots tonight. So I noticed it more rewatching it. What you'll see is you'll get a hard camera shot. And what normally is full, you'll get like, say, six people in a row instead of 10 people. So it's not like one spot that's sort of cordoned off and is empty, but you get a guy, like, two, three spaces between him and the next person. And you see that sort of spread throughout. So it's, yeah, they really should have just squeezed them all into my area like they do in most shows. Yeah.
00:02:16
Speaker
You're free to get an upgrade for being here. The show received about 120,000 pay-per-view buys. That's just over one fourth of last year's total. It's a bit of a dip, yeah? Yeah. We are back down to the old Starrcade totals, where we used to be in the 100,000 to 140,000 range. But you know their quality.
00:02:43
Speaker
So the hot streak is well and truly over, and WCW is back to its old standard, in the range of numbers occupied by Starrcades 1988 through 1995. With the WWF's 1999 numbers consistently above 300,000, and WCW's numbers only breaching that once with February's Super Bowl IX, it seems safe to say that WCW was losing the war. Yeah, it seems pretty sad.
Leadership Changes in WCW
00:03:12
Speaker
Recognizing that they were falling far behind, WCW decided to change things up this year. In September 1999, Eric Bischoff was relieved of his position and replaced by Bill Bush. Until then, the Vice President of Strategic Planning, a position that I would never have guessed WCW had, given what we've seen on some of these shows. That's very militaristic, by the way. Yeah, true. They're a wrestling company. Oh, you know, Monday Night Wars and all that. Fair enough.
00:03:42
Speaker
In October, Bush hired two men to handle the booking, Ed Ferreira and Vince Russo. Rewind a bit.
00:03:51
Speaker
Back in 1996, the WWF wasn't doing so well. WCW Monday Nitro beat the WWF's Monday Night Raw in the ratings for close to two years. The WWF's response, thanks in part, though how large a part is debated, to Vince Russo, who became head writer in early 1997 and Ed Ferreira, who joined Russo on the writing team in 1998, was what would come to be known as the Attitude Era.
00:04:19
Speaker
a drastic transformation of their storylines and style to create an edgier, faster-paced product that could attract the audience that they were missing. With the rise of superstars like Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, and a supervillain in the form of WWF owner Vince McMahon himself, the Attitude Era brought the WWF back to prominence. Though not without controversy. The once family-friendly WWF was definitely not so any longer. Oh yeah.
00:04:49
Speaker
So, the idea was pretty simple. Bring in Russo and Ferrera, and maybe they could help WCW find a new style like they helped the WWF find one. Would it work?
Starrcade 99 Match Overview
00:05:00
Speaker
Let's find out.
00:05:03
Speaker
It's the tradition. Starrcade 99, the granddaddy of them all. The revolution faces hacksaw Jim Duggan and three mystery partners. Who will Duggan bring to Starrcade? If Duggan wins it, the revolution must take over the janitorial duties of WCW for 30 days. If the revolution wins it, Duggan must turn out the United States.
00:05:22
Speaker
Stig takes on his former friend. The total package. If Stig beats the package, Elizabeth's contract with the package is null and void. Creative control and current headache. Doing the bidding of the powers that be. Face Harlem Heat and midnight. In a group war on a pole match. The maniacal David Flair faces off with Diamond. Dallas Paige looking for revenge on the youngster.
00:05:45
Speaker
with the WCW hardcore timing. Screaming Norman Smiley with the Monster Big in a bunkhouse brawl showdown. Jeff Jarrett and Dustin Rhodes, the son of the man that invented the matchup at Starrcade. Johnny the Bull and Big Fido face off with Disco Inferno and Lash LaRue.
00:06:04
Speaker
Dr. Steve Williams with Oklahoma faces the Dark Angel Vampiro. If Vampiro wins it, he gets five minutes with Oklahoma at Starrcade. WCW Cruiserweight Championship on the line. Heaven courageous. Defense against his former significant other, Medusa.
00:06:21
Speaker
Who is the master of the powerbomb? We will find out at Starrcade. When the Millennium Man, Sid Vicious, faces off with Kevin Knack to win the match. All you gotta do, use the powerbomb. And the World Heavyweight Championship is at stake. The former tag team champions do about one on one. Brett, the Hitman Heart Defense against Goldberg. It all goes down at Starrcade.
00:06:49
Speaker
You know Power Bomb should be an energy drink. It should. Let's make it. Yeah. Well, who will be the master though? Because one of us has to be the master. Uh, courtesy of Kale? Oh, okay. So it's a Hawaiian drink. Yeah. It's got to have punch, I mean. Yeah. I think there's some copyright issues there. Possibly.
00:07:17
Speaker
We open with a video package going over the night's matches, and boy are there a lot of them. I can't say I'm happy about it. It basically just lists the 11, potentially 12, depending on how one turns out, matches currently scheduled for the night. It gives a bit of context to a couple, but largely just runs through the list. At the start, there's a weird bit of, I don't know, poetry that flashes on the screen.
00:07:40
Speaker
It reads, the time has come for seas to rise and mountains to fall. Is this the end or just the beginning? Come again? Yeah. It's like half Lovecraft, half Jim Morrison. Yeah. I gotta ask you guys, did the voiceover guy sound really weird?
00:08:00
Speaker
Well, I know I know who it is. So I'm used to that voice. No, I don't mean in the actual voice. I mean the the cadence. Oh, it's like It's like just about every sentence or wrestler name was a new take. Yeah And they're like all being cut together. It just doesn't sound natural It doesn't sound like it like he's actually saying most of those sentences straight through. I don't think he breathed in between things. Yeah
00:08:27
Speaker
That's true, yeah. But it's like some of them, it feels like a new word is starting underneath the prior word, almost. Like they've merged separate clips together in this really unnatural style. I don't know if you guys were picking up on that, dude. I can hear that. I think the closest you can do that now is put all of this into your phone and have Siri read it out, and that's kind of what it sounds like.
00:08:50
Speaker
Well, the weird robotic sniffing sound that they had in between each clip kind of clips out some stuff. Yeah. The Starrcade logo pops up to separate the match videos from each other and it makes this weird like sound each time. But one time it pops up twice in a row. Oh, I have a theory about that, but I'll mention that later in the show. Okay.
00:09:22
Speaker
There's a weird end to the video. As a new WCW logo pops up, it just kind of sits there glaring at us for a bit while ominous noises play. The new logo this year was created apparently to be all cool and late 90s and futuristic. It looks pretty bad. It looks really bad.
00:09:40
Speaker
It's this strange kind of star-shaped mess with a W to each side and an absolutely huge C in the middle of it. It's on the top of the Starrcade logo as well, and it just kind of looks slapped haphazardly up there. It clashes with the rest of the design, I think. For sure, yeah. I mean, I thought they were going to do some sort of space wrestling. Yeah.
00:10:02
Speaker
It just, like, slowly floats onto the screen in this weird, like, ominous thing. It reminded me, kind of, of the Dark Souls title screen that just kind of glares at you. This entire show reminds me more of a video game than an actual show. It looks like an NFL team, or, like, you know, they tried to have some sporty... Yeah. They're going for, like, sleek, but it just comes off, like, awkward.
00:10:33
Speaker
We go from that video package right into another video package. This video package quite nicely sets up the Nash vs. Vicious vs. Hart vs. Goldberg Four-Way Power Bomb World title match. Nice.
00:10:46
Speaker
or that's what it seems like anyway, since there's barely a second of separation between the segment covering Nash versus Vicious and the one covering Hart versus Goldberg. There's also a kind of strange repeated countdown motif that doesn't seem to have anything to do with what's being shown. Just numbers are popping up by four, three, two, one, and over and over. It might be a countdown to the Millennium thing or something. That's what I was thinking too, yeah.
00:11:10
Speaker
is that it's probably them counting down to the new year slash new centuries slash new millennium, only one of which is actually happening. I think they just had the same filter and put it in repeat. Yeah, it comes down on the entrance videos all night too. Oh, yeah.
00:11:27
Speaker
Finally, Tony Schiavone welcomes us to the show, declaring it the last wrestling pay-per-view of the century. First, no it isn't. And second, another show where WCW is not being consistent with what time period they're going to reference? Is this about the millennium or about the century, guys? Glad they didn't bring in the lifetime to this one, at least. Him saying the last wrestling pay-per-view of a lifetime would be really foreboding. Oh no, what the hell happened? That red dot I keep seeing.
00:11:57
Speaker
Tony introduces the other announcers, Bobby the Brain Heenan and Scott, no nickname, Hudson. And we're right on to the first match.
Recap of Disco Inferno vs. Lash LaRue Match
00:12:06
Speaker
Let's go to the ring. So our first match is Disco Inferno and Lash LaRue versus the Marinara Goon Squad. Big Vito and Johnny the Bull with Tony Marinara. Saucy. Yes, it's a very saucy match.
00:12:26
Speaker
The referee for this match is Billy Silverman. Disco Infernal had been involved with the mama Luce, who were tactically basically brought in. A recurring theme throughout this show is that a bunch of people are all power plant call-ups, including Glass Shrew, the guy he's with. So a lot of people are coming in new this year and being thrown into these weird Russo stories. So he was aligned with them for a bit, but fortunately their interference cost him the Cruiserweight title.
00:12:56
Speaker
So that sort of sour the relationship there. So then he's fighting against them and Lasharu is generous enough to get between, you know, mobsters that want to murder people and this Conferno, apparently. Okay. Really just friendly occasion guy, I guess. That's about all there is to it other than them showing a video package of how they apparently doused them in Marinara sauce because Celty is not gonna happen this show. No. Okay, so you're a stupid character named Toyo Marinara.
00:13:26
Speaker
You just pour noodles on him. You don't need the sauce. That's kind of the whole thing. It's stupid, but it could be slightly less stupid? I guess so. You get stabbed with breadsticks. Yeah, there you go. Breadstick nunchucks. Deliciously deadly. Disco comes out with a kind of strange outfit.
00:13:49
Speaker
A big floppy hat, leopard print vest, and what looks like more tiger print pants. He puts the hat on the little kid in the crowd and it just about totally hides the kid's head. That was kind of adorable. He does a disco dance in the ring, as one might expect. His partner, Lash LaRue, has a very shiny silver shirt. It doesn't make up for the loss of Sting's old sparkly jackets, but I appreciate the effort.
00:14:15
Speaker
During Vito and Johnny's entrance, there's a strange sign in the crowd that looks like a carefully laid out collection of various mathematical or arcane symbols. Was the formula for alchemy's fabled Philosopher's Stone revealed on Starrcade 1999? Listener Kevin let me know that several appear to possibly be Greek letters, but as to what it all means, I have no idea. It was a really bizarre sign.
00:14:40
Speaker
My best guess is it's the anti-life equation. There you go. But don't read it out loud, it will not end well. Vito and Johnny's entrance theme is about as Italian mafia as you can get without actually being the theme from The Godfather. They don't say bada bing though, unfortunately. No, that's DDP's thing. Oh yeah, that's true.
00:15:02
Speaker
I immediately hated Tony Marinara for his incredibly punchable facial expressions. Oddly, he has a tiger print shirt on him that looks a lot like the pattern on Disco's pants. The announcers talk about Disco owing him money, so maybe the shirt is actually Disco's. Maybe, yeah. It does look a little too big for Marinara, too, so. True, yeah.
00:15:23
Speaker
The goons win a brawl. Vito and LaRue start off the match proper, and Vito dominates LaRue, including a stalling suplex and lots of wavy martial artsy gestures before and after a big sidekick. Tagged to Johnny, and he and Vito both hit double axe handles, so quadruple axe handles, I guess? There were 22 axe handles. Yeah, that's possible.
00:15:45
Speaker
LaRue gets a hip toss and drop kick and tags Disco. Disco does well and gets one counts off a clothesline and Russian leg sweep, but Johnny ducks a clothesline and sweeps Disco's legs from behind in a cool spot.
00:15:57
Speaker
Cheap shot by Vito puts Disco in trouble and LaRue protests, allowing the Heels to double stomp Disco and switch off behind the ref's back. Vito and Johnny trade off wearing Disco down and double teaming him, earning several two counts. Vito gets a massive one-handed slam, but takes forever doing poses before a second rope splash, so of course Disco dodges. Vito sells, oddly enough, like he hit his crotch, despite landing on his knees.
00:16:25
Speaker
Maybe he's that creature from Star Trek VI that has him in a different place. Makes as much sense than anything on the show. Can't believe I remembered that scene. Okay. No, I know what you're actually talking about. Disco Commando rolls to tag LaRue.
00:16:40
Speaker
LaRue beats up both goons but hits a weird sideways dropkick to Johnny that looked like it was just mistimed. Nice bit as Disco and LaRue whip the goons into each other but the goons no-sell and try clotheslines only for the faces to duck and clothesline them down. Disco and Vito end up outside and LaRue wins a brawl with Johnny by doing the splits and mostly missing a clothesline as Johnny went down early and at the wrong angle. Wow.
00:17:07
Speaker
Johnny comes back with a military press and heenan jokes that they'll call LaRue whiplash LaRue soon. Johnny loses his footing doing a top-rope leg drop, and Hudson nicely incorporates that slip-up into the story by saying it gave LaRue time to dodge. LaRue does some weird amalgamation of a snap-mere and a Russian leg sweep. Guess a snap-shin leg-mere? I don't know.
00:17:33
Speaker
Disco hits a frog splash from up top and gets two, despite not being the legal man, as Vito breaks it up with a top rope elbow drop and rolls Johnny on top, but Disco gets the ropes. LaRue sends Vito into an attempted last dance, uh, stunner, by Disco, but Vito escapes and dodges a clothesline from LaRue. Disco accidentally hits LaRue with the last dance. Vito hits a swinging DDT on LaRue, and Johnny charges at Disco, and Vito gets the three count and the win. Johnny and LaRue were the legal men.
00:18:05
Speaker
Marinara does an irritating dance outside and mocks Disco's dancing. Vito and Johnny beat up Disco, and Marinara comes in and takes a body bag out of his briefcase. As you do. Yes, as one does. If one's a mobster anyway, I guess. Marinara tweaks Disco's nose and pours chloroform or something in his mouth, which nearly instantly knocks Disco out. Pretty sure that's not quite how that works. Critical success.
00:18:31
Speaker
They quite efficiently get Disco into the body bag, and Johnny carries him out in terrifying fashion,
Critique of Match Narratives and Characters
00:18:37
Speaker
as poor Disco nearly slips from his grip multiple times. Vito kind of puts one hand on the bag, but doesn't really bother to actually help.
00:18:53
Speaker
They get Disco through the curtain to backstage, and Johnny immediately, and none too softly, drops him. And they unzip the body bag. Disco is now kind of conscious again, because that's how that works. Well, the fall clearly shook him away. I guess so. Vito drags him to the back of a car, and they stuff him in the trunk and drive off. Hilariously, Marinara accidentally has it in reverse at first.
00:19:16
Speaker
The disco inferno was 25, Hienen says. 32 actually. Yeah. Thoughts on this one?
00:19:26
Speaker
I'm kind of being nicer to this than I originally planned on being. So I think the thing with this match is it shows a lot of potential in the people involved because the three or the four people actually in the match itself are fairly recent call-ups from the power plant. I don't know how much experience they had before being called up, but say they have a year of maybe a year of wrestling. It's kind of like the Triple H
00:19:51
Speaker
Alex Wright. Thank you, Alex Wright match, where you realize, oh, they're both balling for like two years. Yeah. So any miscues, you're like, Oh, okay. Well, that's the kind of understandable. Like Slooger making the same miscue, like, Oh, what's the matter with you? Yeah, it was way longer. But yeah, there's definitely some interesting moments so you can see what they could do. Last time, I've never really been a fan of his, but he has, he's one of the guys that solid just, I never really connected him as a character. Johnny the Bull's a little better because he has a couple of big power moves you can do.
00:20:21
Speaker
He unfortunately is in that same mindset a bunch of people are at this point where there's a move they can do. If they do it right, it looks really cool, but they only do it like 40% of the time. See Sabu. Yeah.
00:20:36
Speaker
The unique but silly finish kinda worked, because it is a tag team match, so at least playing the odds and working together kinda makes sense. It's a little silly that he never bothers to look back at who he's hitting for his finisher. Yeah. But is this Conferno, so I don't know. Yeah. What I really expect out of him at this point. The aftermath, but the body bag and all that is just weird, because I don't know why he's in a body bag.
00:21:03
Speaker
to then take an avid body bag a minute later and put in a trunk. That seems very inefficient. Extremely, yes. And like when they open the trunk, then he's free and can actually fight them. Or if you kept it in the dang body bag, it protects you from him when you're opening the trunk again. Right, right. Yeah. It's mafia 101, guys. Maybe the chloroform was just, I don't know, expired. Yeah. It's definitely not as good as last year's opener. No. By a mile.
00:21:33
Speaker
I do like a energetic and unique opening match. It had those things, but somehow, I think everyone was so busy wanting to play up their stereotype, they forgot to wrestle. I mean, there was a lot of bot shots and that's okay, but they were quick about it, there was a little bit of
00:21:59
Speaker
showboating after each move by the heels. It was good to a certain degree. Yeah, you know. A lot of tight punches all in the mind. Yes. Put some of those filters in the beginning and be like, oh, it's a rave. But, you know, it was not a good formula for me to enjoy the match. The fact that the lead in and the exit take up about the same amount. I know it doesn't take up the same amount of time in the match, but it felt that way.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I don't remember seeing anything else come of this from the pseudo marinara mafia in the rest of the show. The amount of time that was put in, if there was something else in the show, which I could have forgotten, it would make more sense. No, they're not.
00:22:49
Speaker
I like that they didn't blur the license tag it in, so if we could go back and find out if someone called in something for VTX 1016, that would be an interesting point. Overall, I was not impressed, and this sort of kind of set my tone for the first few matches. Yeah, yeah. I thought this was pretty decent myself. They had a fast pace, if very sloppy at times. Yeah. Like Marinara. Yeah.
00:23:20
Speaker
The Goons in particular had some cool spots individually and some nice double team moves, but Johnny the Bull just couldn't quite manage all of his spots properly. There were little flubs here and there that just added up over the course of the match and made it harder than it should have been to stay involved in the match's story. Vito seemed a little more reliable, but it's like every other move he's gesticulating wildly into the air to taunt.
00:23:44
Speaker
Still, good heel work by the goons overall, and Disco and LaRue did just fine balancing selling for the goons with fighting just enough to make it look like they still had a chance. A basic match structure, raised up by some creative spots, and lowered down by some notable botches and confusion as to who was the legal man. Still, for me, this was a pretty fun start to the Starrcade.
00:24:05
Speaker
But I will definitely agree that the storyline bits after the match are ridiculous. Yeah. It's like, does no one want to help Disco or at least? I know that's always a thing on wrestling shows. Like, OK, someone is apparently going to be murdered. At this point, someone should probably run out there and help him. Yeah. Where at the very least is the head of security for this company? Yeah. Come on, Dillinger. Yeah, exactly.
00:24:33
Speaker
I did chuckle at the being in reverse first. That was great. I'm like, oh my gosh, and he really took out the cameraman. I guess he figured his guys both botched things during the match, so he might have a little botched something during the exit. I'm kind of between you two on my feelings on this, so I feel like if you see more with people involved, except for Maydisco, he's kind of peaked for what he can do.
00:25:00
Speaker
I think might be able to press more in other matches. You've experienced up to now. I definitely see what you're saying on. You can see the potential of the people involved that with more seasoning. I feel like these guys can can make it. So you need some oregano. Yes. A little touch of basil. Yeah. I mean, the energy was there. I just thought that it could have been executed a little bit better. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Now I'm with you.
00:25:30
Speaker
This storyline does go a little bit further. They play up disco, owing money to the mob boss, who's the dad of Trey Maranera. But further intel, it's just an actor, because it's not a wrestler I recognized. But Elle comes due ahead with Trey Maranera anyways, at Sold Out, where he appears in a backstage promo, interviewed by Meeting Oakland, who says he has to quote, go take care of some business, and it's never seen again.
00:25:56
Speaker
because he signed with ECW and became 20 Mama Luke. It's not a better name, but he's generally a much more regarded wrestler. He become part of the full-blown Italians or the FBI in ECW, which weirdly enough would eventually be reformed in WWE to include Giant of the Bull. That all loops around eventually. All reunion. All the familia. Yeah. Exactly.
00:26:24
Speaker
Weirdly, this association with the group, the Mama Luke's in general, is actually not over after they took him away to be tortured and murdered. That's strange. He's with them for a while after this. I guess they got over it. They made him an offer he couldn't refuse, I guess. Yeah. Good old fashioned Stockholm cinder.
00:26:50
Speaker
There's one big misconception with this match though. So there's long sections like in the early part and the middle where the mama Luke's are beating up, controlling disco inferno. Not once do any of them yell disco is dead. Yeah, that's not once. That's true. I'm very disappointed in them.
00:27:10
Speaker
We go to the announcers, and Tony brushes off Disco Inferno's likely coming demise to talk about the Hart vs. Goldberg no disqualification match for the world title. There's a fun fan sign in the crowd. WCW. Drink till it looks real. Ouch. Fitting after the last match we had, actually. Yeah. Good job.
00:27:35
Speaker
Hudson says almost exactly the same thing that Tony just said, and then says the match will determine who is the king of the WCW belt. What? Yeah, but... Tony turns to Henan and asks about the Nash vs. Vicious powerbomb match, and Henan builds up how big both guys are and how Vicious never gives up and always moves forward. Tony says their, quote, third main event,
00:28:04
Speaker
Chris Benoit versus Scott Hall for Hall's US title can't happen because Hall has a knee injury. Tony says that WCW's Championship Committee has declared that because of that, Hall has forfeited his title to Benoit, so Benoit is now champion. Benoit's music suddenly hits, and Tony questioningly studies his papers, then throws to the ring to find out why Benoit is coming out despite not having a match.
00:28:28
Speaker
Sit on the format sheet. Chris Benoit comes out dressed in street clothes and carrying the United States title. Benoit's music is a horrible mess of bass guitar and random other notes with no actual melody. He takes a microphone. Earlier today, WCW's executive committee stated that because Scott Hall was unable to wrestle tonight,
00:28:59
Speaker
Not only does he forfeit the ladder match, but along with it forfeits the US heavyweight title, which in turn makes me the new US heavyweight champion. Sounds like a popular decision. You know, in my opinion, titles aren't to be given, they're to be won.
00:29:30
Speaker
The Cripplers got a motto, sweat more in peacetime, bleed less during war. I came to DC tonight to kick some ass. I knew I came here tonight to see a ladder match for the US heavyweight title. In my opinion, this title is vacant.
00:29:58
Speaker
But what I'm gonna do is issue an open challenge to anyone sitting in the locker room that wants to fight for the pride, the prestige, and the notoriety of being the US Heavyweight Champion. But if you wanna get to the top of the WCW, tonight you're gonna have to climb over the Crippler.
00:30:29
Speaker
I thought this was a pretty good promo by Benoit actually. That's somewhat unusual. He came off as a brave fighter that wanted to earn his championship ring. He kept it simple and turned a moment that could have been very disappointing for the crowd into a focus for anticipation for later in the show. So well done on that.
00:30:48
Speaker
I think this is the point that explains that double Starrcade logo from the opening video package. I imagine what happened there is that they cut a bit out about Benoit vs. Hall. So we got the transitions to and from that bit right next to each other. Any thoughts on the promo? Compared to the last we got it is amazing. It's way better than quote the Crippler no more.
00:31:14
Speaker
They stop giving them poetry, which is definitely a good idea. No, I thought it was good. Like you said, it kind of gives some anticipation for later on and kind of gives a free form feel that they're going to give them a show. And I think if WCW had chosen that for a lot of the previous arcades, we wouldn't be seeing the turnout that we are. Yeah, most likely.
00:31:41
Speaker
all the great possible matches they might get, like Crispinball versus Brian Knobs in his ladder match, I mean. Oh my gosh, man. Don't ruin it.
00:31:52
Speaker
But no, I see like, I mean, on 97, if we'd done something like this when Nash didn't show, then you might've gotten some kind of satisfactory match for the giant or for Scott Hall or something at that show. Instead, they were just like, oh, you're not getting the match. On this one, they're like, no, we're still going to give you a match, which is a good thing. So Starrcade 99 plus one point. Yeah. I give them two. Got to get those points while they can. Yeah.
00:32:22
Speaker
Before Benoit even leaves the ring, Medusa's music starts up and the text flies on the screen to let us know that this is the Cruiserweight title match. I think that weird sound that happens in the middle of Benoit's promo might be that logo starting up really quick before someone realizes it and stops it. So our second match is Medusa versus Evan Courageous with Spice for Courageous' Cruiserweight title. The referee for this match is Mickey J.
00:32:51
Speaker
So, as mentioned in the previous Mad Set-Up, this Conferno loses Cruiserweight title due to shenanigans upon Mama Luke's. He loses it to Evan Courageous, whose name is spelled as stupidly as you would guess. Are you just refusing to call them the Marineric Dune Squad? Yes. Okay, I figured. Yes, I am. Just making sure. Correct.
00:33:11
Speaker
He wins a title, and the story they have going is that Medusa, who, to remind you, they brought him to their company because she wanted to wrestle with women competitively for a title, is now his manager. Mm-hmm. Slash love interest. Sure, she's really glad to meet the jump now. Yeah. Really not regretting the things she did. Unfortunately, for their relationship, he starts hitting on an extra girl named Spice. As such, Medusa gets mad and challenges the title match, which he accepts.
00:33:43
Speaker
Medusa has a sparkly blue outfit with stars tonight, and hair that oddly looks like Chris Jericho's hair from last year. Same hairstyle, just about. Yeah. Was that blue? That wasn't blue, but the, like, same shape. Oh. Courageous, fighting his ex-girlfriend, comes out holding hands with current girlfriend, Spice. Slightly awkward.
00:34:08
Speaker
The entrance themes tonight are just beats and bass and rhythm, no actual melody. It's starting to get on my nerves at this point. Well, I mean, you gotta pay singers if they sing songs, so I'm not doing that. We can't afford that. Courageous is particularly harsh and annoying. Oh, yeah. Medusa dives on Courageous before he enters, and they fight outside. Courageous throws Medusa to the steps for exactly zero sina as they don't even move.
00:34:37
Speaker
Back and forth, and they go in, where she challenges him to punch her, but he hesitates. She slaps him, so he punches her and she goes down. Kerei just clothesline and whips, but they mistime a power slam. Kerei just tries a beautiful top rope moonsault that would have missed by a mile even if Medusa hadn't dodged. Good form work on the distance.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah, it looked good. It looks really good. He just like clears half the ring and she's like lying in the first quarter of it. It rolled like through the whole thing. Yeah. Just want to make sure I wasn't in the way. Yeah, the common thing with Kratos, he'll do Muta look really good, but he'll go too far or too short. I think a bunch of Matt if he does that. He's overconfident in his abilities to get exact positioning. Yeah.
00:35:24
Speaker
Medusa hits a Muta-esque spin kick and drop kick, but Courageous gets a powerbomb for two. Medusa bridges up, turns him over, and looks to be going for a pile driver, but can't get her grip right, and nearly drops Courageous right on his head. Luckily, she muscles him up a bit so that he lands on his shoulders and a very awkward powerbomb instead. That was scary. Even Hiden sounds shaken up afterwards.
00:35:53
Speaker
Medusa oddly just rolls courageous over and he stands. Yes, she might have wanted to make sure he could. Gosh.
00:36:02
Speaker
She charges, but he throws her onto the apron and hits a rope-assisted stunner. Medusa to the floor, and Courageous dives out on top of her, but as he rolls her in the ring, she points at the ring. Spice suddenly climbs up on the apron and makes out with Courageous, and Medusa slaps Courageous and Spice hits the gentlest punch to the balls you will ever see, as Courageous does not even recognize it happened to sell.
00:36:26
Speaker
Medusa hits a nice bridging German suplex for the three count and the win, winning the cruiserweight title. Courageous just leaves, and Medusa and Spice exit together. I mean, he's very accepting what happens. Like, yep. Well, gotta go now.
00:36:41
Speaker
I didn't think it was a punch, I thought it was a pinch. Yeah, it's supposed to be like a straight shot. I imagine it's what he's going for. Yeah. That's okay. I imagine he's grateful that it didn't hit hard, but it's still like he clearly doesn't recognize that the move has even occurred because you don't know sell a ball shot. No. But he knows sells a ball shot.
00:37:06
Speaker
Maybe you could argue that the fact that she hit him there and it didn't seem to bother him is maybe why Spice is breaking up with him? I mean, maybe. Okay. Anyway, thoughts on this match? Oh, a bit of all that. Sloppy, awkward stuff. It's a pretty accurate summary from the whole match, really. Yeah.
00:37:31
Speaker
Medusa does do her jury suplex. Well, I'll give her that. And she has a couple of spots that go well. Obviously one that absolutely did not go well. Yes. That spot she's going for felt like a sable move. Sable would do the sable bomb. And I was like, I don't think of you as doing power bonds. I'm sure she has done them, but that's not the way I think of it. And it's weird that they so committed this spot and obviously should not have been given how it ended up.
00:37:55
Speaker
That's where I'm almost sure what she's actually trying to do as a pile driver, and he just starts to slip. And she and he together managed to turn it into a powerbomb to save him. Because when you look, she actually grabs him by the belt to start pulling up, or the tights to start pulling up, which is something you do with a pile driver more often. It's not something you do with a powerbomb. But when he starts to kind of slip, she changes her grip and it turns into the powerbomb looking thing.
00:38:23
Speaker
I mean, yeah, no one's heard from it so it's really majorly, so I'm glad they did what they did, but it's just, yeah, that spot feels weird because it's all Bill trying to remove that. I don't think of her doing it. Right, yeah. My last note was the worst looking low blow ever. And mind you, this is a show with at least 42 of them.
00:38:46
Speaker
I did like that Medusa wrestled without shoes. I thought I was a unique part of her wrestling kit. You don't have to worry about the whole week kicked up at the heel or something like that. That's a good point, yeah. You probably insisted. Honestly, I was more intrigued about with Spice than the rest of the match. I was like, to go back a little bit of a personal thing, when I was online, my call sign was virtue, and Bobby was like, virtue of what?
00:39:11
Speaker
And so the whole time I'm like, what spice is this? You know, and, and I don't know, the saving grace for this whole match was it was short. Yes. True. I mean, there were some missed spots and everything, but at the end of the day, it still had a cohesive narrative that there's some betrayal and then that's it. Done. And then spice becomes a good promoter and then they will go away and you don't hear anything else. Yeah.
00:39:40
Speaker
I think the spelling of his name kind of just pushed me against him in the beginning. It does that. It does that. Yeah, what a mess. These two had no chemistry in the ring, and their timing seemed off for the entire match. Most of the moves looked clumsy in some way or another, and that pile driver slash powerbomb was horrifically frightening. That could easily have left courageous paralyzed or dead.
00:40:06
Speaker
very badly performed ending spot too, except for Medusa's still good bridging German suplex. This just kind of fell apart from the opening moments and it just never recovered. Just a bad match. It's a shame to go from either of the Cruiserweight title matches we got last year's show. Oh my gosh, yes.
00:40:25
Speaker
Even just a direct comparison, last year's show with a reminder we got Eddie Guerrero versus Blake Kidman as second match for the Cruiserweight title. So yeah, it did not hold up compared to that. Yeah, you look at last year's Cruiserweight stuff and there's no comparison. Absolutely no comparison. None. I like that they gave the Cruiserweight to a woman, which I think is the first, right?
00:40:47
Speaker
for the company? I believe they say it's actually the first for WCW overall for a woman holding a not specific women's title. I don't know if that's accurate. I mean, it's WCW. They tend to say whatever, but it sounds probably pretty feasible. I will say it's weird that Medusa never gets to hold the WCW Women's Championship. That's true. But she gets to hold this title. I guess she gets a title. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:12
Speaker
Evan Courageous will quickly rebound from this. In fact, I looked at this about a week later to form the trio known as Three Count. Yes. With Shannon Moore, Evan Courageous, and Sugar Shane Helms. Yes. One of the few things that I love from WCW2000.
00:41:31
Speaker
Basically, they're three young male wrestlers they hired, and they're all cruising away until they have them act like a boy band and sing a song about how they're better than other boy bands. That sounds awesome. It is absolutely glorious. Yeah. To remind you, we are deep in the NSYNC Backstreet Boys time period of music, so this is why they're doing this.
00:41:50
Speaker
As for Medusa, she has a title defense on Nitro about a week from now against Asia. So we have two women competing for the title. It was interesting. Yeah, that's that's nice, actually. Yeah. Less nice is who she's against later, but I'll get to that when it comes up. We go backstage where a mean Jean Okerlund is with Norman Spiley, who is carrying his hardcore championship and dressed in full football gear.
00:42:17
Speaker
Norman Smiley, in just a few moments, right here tonight at Starrcade, you are going to be defending the WCW Hardcore title. Now, at the risk of Saudi negative, I get the impression that you are afraid of me. You're frightened. Frightened? I wouldn't say frightened. Cautious? Yes. Weary? Absolutely. But I'm not scared, and I'm going to let...
00:42:41
Speaker
Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, Norman, that's just the producer trying to count you out of the interview. You gotta settle down. He shouldn't make any sudden moves like that. I'm a crawl screen waiting to explode. And tonight, Mink's gonna find that out. Ooh, you okay? Of course we're off. Hey, Mr. Producer, but yeah, I'm talking to you. Don't make any more sudden moves like that. I'm gonna saw my pants. Am I okay back to you, dude? Oh, you did? Really?
00:43:06
Speaker
Why? Why? The screamin' Norman Smiley gimmick is here. Did they really have to give a guy who could put on the kind of submission hold clinic we saw last year, the gimmick of frequently being so scared he might wet himself? The promo's fine otherwise, I guess. Decent insincere bravery on Smiley's part. He performs this well. I just wish he wasn't performing this. It feels beneath him.
00:43:35
Speaker
It's a good horror movie screen, but it's weird coming from him as his character, but yeah, it's an actor for that.
00:43:44
Speaker
I don't know why they turned him into that. Yeah. I saw the look of pain on your face while I was playing the promo. Honestly, if I had a pay-per-view, I don't know if I would turn it off. I'd be like, is this what this is gonna be? Is this what this show is gonna be? Yep. I understand. Yeah, this is... I didn't mind this so much before I knew how good he was. Yeah.
00:44:07
Speaker
I do have to raise an obvious issue with the plot of this show so far with regards to him. So between match one and two, we get the promo explaining that Scott Hall is injured and thus has vacated his US title. Norm Smiley does not want to wrestle in hardcore matches. Why don't you just tell them he's injured and vacate the title? The WCW would never believe that you were injured if you weren't. Come on. Oh, that's true.
00:44:35
Speaker
There's one thing you can say for WCW officials and referees and people in general, they are not gullible, man. They've restored your face since Nick Patrick sadly betrayed our trust. For all those years we trusted him.
00:44:52
Speaker
Well, our third match is Meng versus Norman Smiley for Smiley's WCW hardcore title. The referee for this match is Nick Patrick with Nick Patrick's mustache. Very nice. Due to the popularity of ECW, we now have a hardcore title with WCW. Probably perhaps helped by stuff coming in WWF as well with Crash Holly.
00:45:18
Speaker
In the finals, Norman Smiley, the reluctant hardcore wrestler who's from an entertainment that's all hardcore. Again, I don't know why. No one ever accused him of being smart. That's true, I guess. He becomes the champion. He now has to face the master of somewhere between seven and nine martial arts to keep it, Meng. Meng has a sparkly gold robe and pants. Everyone's trying to make up for the lack of sting jackets, I guess. Thanks, guys.
00:45:47
Speaker
Norman is out to yet more generic rock. He rolls a dumpster full of strange weapons, including a surge barrel, to the ringside area and puts on his football helmet. Smiley hurls objects at Meng, and Meng uses those objects to block other objects. Smiley flees, and Meng runs the dumpster into him and Smiley loses his helmet. He might want to get a refund on that.
00:46:09
Speaker
Meng uses a garbage can on Smiley and Smiley screams and runs backstage, then ambushes Meng. Meng no-sells and beats up Smiley and Smiley screams and flees. Rinse and repeat as they go through and wreck a dining area. Meng slams Smiley through a table. Smiley grabs and sprays a fire extinguisher at everything but Meng, then hides in the dining area debris.
00:46:32
Speaker
Finley and Brian Knob show up and try various objects against Meng. Meng destroys the two, even sending Knobs through deadly cardboard boxes of napkins. Meng ignores everything they use, including Knob's ultimate weapon, the dreaded Cardboard Starcade Sign.
00:46:51
Speaker
but Finley finally knocks him out with a lead pipe. Finley a knobs leave, and Smiley crawls out of the wreckage, kicks Meng to make sure he's out, and puts a hand on him for the very fast three count by Nick Patrick, so he can do a fast count. Yeah. He's been saving his energy up for all these years. There you go. Patrick checks on Meng, and Meng wakes up and applies the Tongan death grip to him as we fade out. And so does he. Yes. Thoughts on this one?
00:47:21
Speaker
Punching, running, hilarity? I like how you put a question mark on hilarity. Yeah, no, I absolutely did. It deserves the question mark, yes. Hilarity? Uh-huh. So I started watching wrestling around the time this became a thing. So I was used to Crash Holly where you fight people in the airport and the ball pit and all this stuff in the park.
00:47:44
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, this is not good, but at least it's amusing. They would play about comedic this is, and it kind of works as a sort of diversion, which is what they were trying fairly recently with the WWE 24-7 thing. They kind of just gave up on that for the most part. You know, people would be attacked at weddings and you know, on a plane and stuff like that, but now it's just like, ah, we don't care. Which is what generally happened with hardcore divisions. They gave it six months to a year and they just kind of stopped worrying about it.
00:48:14
Speaker
I did like to certain extent how overbooked the finish was purely designed to keep Ming super strong because he obviously can easily overcome Smiley, who apparently forgot all of his holds in terror. Yes. And Brian Nobbs and Finley until they below, I assume was the lead pipe leftover by a retired Arn Anderson.
00:48:37
Speaker
Honestly, I know we're not doing MVPs per match, but if we're doing MVPs per match, my MVP of this match anyways is actually Dick Patrick for his hilarious cartoon salad being choked. Yes. That was the one moment that was actually funny in this. Yes. He knows what it's supposed to be, where everyone else is like, trash can, the trash can then. Yeah. Again.
00:49:02
Speaker
More like a video game than a show. It is totally slapstick. It's like an SNL skit or like three stooges reenactment. I would not be surprised if a giant mallet showed up, giant boxing gloves, or a gun with a little thing that shot out and said bang. It would not have surprised me in the least. It's a nice distraction, but come on. You could use Smiley better than that.
00:49:29
Speaker
I'm glad it ended the way it did because then they can continue the joke and kind of get feedback and see if that's something they want to see again. But I think they could have gone a little bit crazier than a little. We had a cafeteria set up for lunch earlier. They could have done something stupider.
00:49:46
Speaker
Well, I always think about that. So we had Norris Miley backstage just talking to Gene Ercoland. He immediately goes right to the ring because he's being called off the promo during the promo. And then they fight his back within a minute or two. They really should have me and Gene actually still back them. He's surprised when they ran past him again. Yeah. Like, Santa, like, what are you doing back here? Oh, no, you're something. Something to realize how silly this is. 1-900-909-99. Ah! Yeah, exactly.
00:50:11
Speaker
Well, my favorite part is when, other than the choking, um, is when Smiley just randomly, instead of just running through the opening that they have, he just runs and jumps into the curtains, partition and rolls himself up, just like disappears amongst the wreckage for no reason. And I think that's Q for the, the other people come in. Come on.
00:50:34
Speaker
Should've done the cartoon thing and tried to dump behind a tree and see if he vanishes once he gets behind it. Yeah, might as well go full bore with it if you're gonna do it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Bunch of brawling. Meng did look awesome just hurling stuff around backstage to be sure, but there's no sense of drama to the match. It's just, and I use the word loosely, comedy.
00:51:00
Speaker
This could be something I enjoyed if Smiley's character was such that I thought he could win if he tired the big guy out. But Smiley's not a scrappy underdog, he's a coward who doesn't have any strategy beyond hit men with object. Yeah.
00:51:14
Speaker
Finlay and Knobs just take over for Smiley in the exact same storyline with less screaming, and then we get a deeply unsatisfying end. They took a good wrestler who could perform intricate wrestling matches and turned him into a screaming idiot who never does anything more complex than swinging a trash can.
00:51:31
Speaker
Last year, Smiley's hold got Henan joking about Thanksgiving. This year, Smiley's the turkey. Yeah, I pasted. I do not approve at all. Well, maybe he wanted to be cardboard champion. Silly, but not silly enough. Yeah. Does not require further thought. No. True.
00:51:57
Speaker
Smiley would drop the towel to Brian Knobbs in, you guessed it, January. As a bonus, it happened on Thunder, not Nitro. OK. Or pay-per-view. That's about the level of importance that this deserves. That was actually my note. This towel change is not poor enough for Nitro. Yep. Meanwhile, backstage, a delivery guy knocks on a door, bearing a sign with Commissioner crossed out and D Flair written in.
00:52:25
Speaker
David Flair whips the door open and screams, What do you want? before ripping the package out of the delivery guy's hands. He opens it up and finds a gold crowbar. He goes back inside giggling as Hienan notes that he didn't tip. At least he's showing some emotion, I guess. We go to the locker room where
00:52:48
Speaker
Oklahoma is talking with Dr. Death Steve Williams. It's been a long time since we've seen Dr. Death. I think it's Starrcade92. Yes, that is correct, correct. Oklahoma is Ed Ferreira doing a terrible and often offensive Jim Ross parody, which has included making fun of J.R. Bell's palsy. Oklahoma says he'll be out there with his microphone turned on so he can call the match, and Dr. Death shouts, Boomer Sooner! So Oklahoma joins in.
00:53:17
Speaker
Oklahoma walks out of the room, and we cut back to the announcers. Tony sarcastically says, uh, it's good news that Oklahoma will be joining them for commentary, and Hudson much less sarcastically says that's terrific. Tony cuts him off to throw to the back again, where we see that Oklahoma has been kidnapped by punk rock band The Misfits, who are allied with Dr. Death's opponent, Vampiro.
00:53:41
Speaker
Hudson notes that if Vampiro beats Dr. Death later, Vampiro gets five minutes with Oklahoma. It's been a while since we saw that stipulation. I think it might have been back at 85? I want to say 85, yeah. Good gosh. We go back to the announcers and fans behind the announce table flip the bird at the camera. I'm going to take that as their opinion of Oklahoma. He's just okay. He's number two.
00:54:08
Speaker
Tony brings up the upcoming Duggan with Mystery Partners vs. Revolution match and says the Revolution consider themselves a sovereign nation. He throws to a video package covering the feud.
00:54:20
Speaker
During that, we get our first shot of the Powers That Be. That's Vince Russo in a bare office set with very bad acoustics, filmed so only his right hand shows up, a la Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget. He is controlling the company or something. It's less clear than Eric Bischoff's role, which was already not always that clear.
00:54:40
Speaker
We cut back to Mike Tenet, who is with Duggan, and his 2x4. Tenet says they don't know who his mystery partners are, and Duggan says that's why it's called a mystery. His partners are all true blue Americans, though. What about red and white? No. Duggan has to go now to defend our country.
00:55:00
Speaker
Duggan does have a lot of character, but this was largely an unnecessary super quick promo. I feel like I'm just repeating things from last year, but we really didn't need both this and the video package, did we? No. Just pick one. If everyone they interviewed didn't look like they came out of some sort of drug-induced fever dream, it would be good.
00:55:20
Speaker
Give him, like, 30 seconds. Like, cut a promo that makes any sense. He's like, boom, sir. Yeah. Like, what are we going to say in 30 seconds to tell the story? I don't know. Yeah. So our fourth match is the revolution. That's Shane Douglas, Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko and Asia versus Hacksaw, Jim Duggan and three mystery partners. The referee for this is Johnny Boone.
00:55:49
Speaker
Shane Douglas, right out of ECW, like a lot of people you'll see over the course of 99 and 2000, points a group of misfits not called the flock. They declare themselves to be separate from America, which angers wrestler turned janitor turned wrestler again, Jim Duggan. He agreed to do bad things if he loses. They agreed to do his job if they lose.
00:56:11
Speaker
There's a Family Guy plot where their house is not in the map and they get outside of the U.S. I was like, did they rip off Family Guy? Pitoria was the name of his. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I looked it up because I was curious. I don't know the exact year Family Guy episodes. That was July 2000. So no, they didn't. They just both had the same words inspired by the revolution. I really doubt that.
00:56:36
Speaker
Yeah, so Duggan has to denounce the United States and... Here's the announce to the US if he loses and they agree to be janitors. Okay. Asia is called Asia as WCW's way of saying that she is greater than the WWF's China. Get it? It's so petty. The revolution comes out in blue and red lighting that stays while Shane Douglas grabs a microphone. He tells the crowd to shut up and watch them kick Duggan's butt.
00:57:06
Speaker
Dean Malenko, bathed in blue light, looks like the Terminator. Duggan's entrance theme is John Philip Sousa's The Washington Post march, written in 1889 for the award ceremony of an essay contest held by the famous newspaper. It actually has a gosh darn melody, temporarily making Duggan the biggest face on the show for me. Sorry, Al. It won't last.
00:57:29
Speaker
The Washington Post is a great march, but it's always been a little funny to me that Duggan used that rather than Sousa's Stars and Stripes forever, considering that he so often came out with the flag. Yeah, it's true. Not a fan of Duggan's attire. No, no, no. He's basically WCW's janitor at the moment is why. Like I said, yeah, he's the wrestler, turn janitor, and turn wrestler again. Yeah. Gotcha. But it's stupid. Yes. Extremely, yes. Yeah.
00:57:57
Speaker
Shane Douglas goes over to join the commentary team. Duggan waves the US flag around and signals to cut the music, turning him heel with me. He leads the crowd in the USA chant and introduces his mystery partners. The Varsity Club, Mike Rotunda, Rick Steiner, and Kevin Sullivan. They're led to the ring by a cheerleader. I'll admit that it was hilariously awesome to see Rotunda, Sullivan, and Steiner back in their old Varsity Club college letter jackets.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah. Sullivan goes after the revolution. Duggan signals to the Varsity Club that he'll start the match. Milenko and Duggan start. Duggan beats up Milenko, and Saturn just kind of trades places with Milenko, which is apparently fine. So Duggan beats up Saturn. The Varsity Club bounces Saturn around with punches, as Duggan can't find a point to jump in in a funny spot. Duggan single-handedly beats up Milenko and Saturn some more, and Douglas points out that Duggan isn't tagging his partners.
00:58:56
Speaker
Duggan three-point stands clothesline into a knee drop for one as he breaks to fight an approaching Saturn. Malenko finally gets control with a dropkick to Duggan's knee and tags Saturn, and Saturn and Malenko double-team Duggan when Boon has to go stop Sullivan from getting in. Saturn blessedly hits a springboard rebounding dropkick for two and tries a top rope moonsault that Duggan dodges to add a few interesting moves to this match.
00:59:20
Speaker
Malenko hits Duggan with the revolution's flag while Asia distracts the ref, but Asia keeps the distraction up for too long and it only gets two. Duggan finally tries for a tag, but Saturn cuts him off and all three members of revolution hit corner clotheslines in turn. Saturn's is oddly light.
00:59:37
Speaker
The Triple Teaming brings in the Varsity Club, who dispose of the revolution, but suddenly turn on Duggan and beat him up, holding off the revolution at the same time. Sullivan punts Duggan in the nuts. Well, Boone is distracted by Asia, and the Varsity Club goes to fight Malenko and Saturn. I see an opening and I think I'll take it, Douglas says, leaving the announce table to go pin Duggan for the three count and the win because tag rules mean nothing anymore.
01:00:03
Speaker
I mean, come on, I get that Heel's cheap with tags all the time, but Boone surely has to know that the guy who was sitting at the announce table for the whole match is probably not the legal man. I know, but maybe he climbed the ring and yelled, Slap, as he went by. He did not. Don't even try to excuse it. I wasn't really. Malenko waves the revolution's flag. Their symbol looks uncannily like a blue version of the Tim Drake Robin logo.
01:00:33
Speaker
Was that serious? Was I the one that saw that or did it look like that to you guys? It is. I would use this suitably similar. Good point. I didn't notice that, but well spotted. Douglas grabs a mic and says that Duggan has 24 more hours to wrap himself in the flag and then on Nitro he'll have to denounce the USA and denounce, I think he means renounce, his citizenship. Malenko drapes Duggan in the revolutions flag.
01:01:02
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? Duggan does all the face work. I don't mean to this poor guy, because I'm sure he went through a lot of his life before and after this. I'm sure he's a nice person. I've been near him at a indie show once, but that's the extent of ever meeting him. But that said, he's not really good. And he wasn't really good in the mid 80s, and this is 1999. So I will say that for the storyline,
01:01:31
Speaker
It has to make sense that he acts that way. He's constantly staying in the ring and not tagging out, but it basically puts all of the work.
01:01:39
Speaker
on the shoulders of people like Malenko and Saturn, which they can thoroughly handle that. They can do enough of their own stuff. I think as short as this is, it kind of works up until the turn. It just gets fuzzy and a little screwy when the varsity club attacks Duggan, but also still attacks Revolution. Yeah. They just fight everybody, basically. Yeah, I guess so.
01:02:02
Speaker
That was confusing. Yeah. It is a group that features Kevin Sullivan, who is insane. So I guess that it still kind of makes sense. Even aside from that, this is a Russo show and swerves are as common as refs missing tags and are ignoring the need to tag. It was still a pretty obvious swerve, at least to me. No one there is going to do a long face run to the group. So yeah. Your trusted true blue American is Kevin Sullivan. Yeah.
01:02:32
Speaker
I mean, yeah, he used to paint, you know, the Nessie symbol on his face. I mean, that's the guy I would trust. Yeah. Why? John is praying, everyone.
01:02:46
Speaker
You know, it wasn't the best matches, but I did, you know, it was nice to see Hacksaw out there for a little bit. I still don't know why the varsity club just turned on him. It makes no sense to me. I thought it was one of those things, oh, they're joining the revolution. I was trying to put some sort of narrative in place, but I had nothing to go off of.
01:03:06
Speaker
other than at the end of the day, they just wanted to make themselves out to be real big heels. And it's like, you will have to renounce your citizenship. And then they're just gathering as many booze as they possibly can towards the end of the match. And I thought that was the goal, goal, goal accomplished. And I kind of thought that their flag would have been better if it was just a bunch of stars and then just a little square of stripes. Like they're like an inverse. They're the inverted US flag, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there you go.
01:03:37
Speaker
That's way more thought than they put in the most things on this show. Yes. Yeah. Or just a different color palette. I don't know. I'm torn on this one because there's enough character work to kind of carry it and the crowd is certainly hot for it and nearly constantly doing Duggan's whole yell. But you're thinking of Thundercats. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:02
Speaker
But there's not a lot to this. No. Duggan's offense is largely just basic punches. So the match isn't terribly interesting when he's in control, which is, as you pointed out, basically the entire match. Yeah.
01:04:14
Speaker
Saturn gets in a more exciting move or two, though along with some surprisingly wispy punches and clotheslines, Milenko shows some good fire, but this isn't their kind of match and you can tell. The story of Duggan recruiting and then not using the Varsity Club ticking them off is kind of interesting. It'd be stronger if Duggan didn't actually start reaching for the tag near the end, but I guess you can say it was too late by then.
01:04:36
Speaker
It was fun to see the Varsity Club again, and the match had a decent enough outline. There's just not enough actual content to make it good. Also, I now very much want to see Mike Rotunda versus Dean Malenko. Yeah. That seems like that would be fun. That would be, yeah. So on the following night show, the members of the Varsity Club were in a tag team match against Harlem Heat, who we'll see later in this show. And they explained that they turned on Duncan because he refused to tag and work as a team.
01:05:06
Speaker
To the extent of reason why they're healed now, because they thought he was being a dick when it's not really wrong. Yeah. As far as actual story goes, it's a little shocky, but Duggan does not follow through with what he said. I know that bear in mind, Duggan is the true American face. So they confront him. The fact that he lost the match and must do what he says. His response is, well, I was lying.
01:05:33
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, this leads to them understandably beating him up. But again, they're the bad guys? I guess? But this leads to Return of the Filthy Animals, the faction with Billie Kidman, Eddie Guerrero, or Mysterio. I know those who we don't get to see on this show for some reason. Yeah. Then live with the Varsity Club. Same. Question. Did that sign in the beginning of the show summon the Varsity Club with the Greek letters? Maybe. It is Kevin Sullivan. He's got all that mystic stuff.
01:06:03
Speaker
And yeah, I see what you're getting at, the Greek stuff. He did used to be a druid. Yeah. Yeah, it's Greek and mysticism, so maybe. For the Varsity Club, they'll have a fairly short run in WW. They'll follow this feud up with going into the creative control, who we'll see later in the show. And they will leave their promotion in, you guessed it, January. Yup. But Tunde & Company, most of them end up going back to all Japan wrestling.
01:06:33
Speaker
Tony throws to Mean Gene Okerlund, who is backstage with the Misfits, who now have Oklahoma in a cage. Gene asks, how? And why? The Misfits talker, I know nothing about the Misfits, says the Misfits are making sure Oklahoma keeps his word so Vampiro can get his five minutes with Oklahoma. This was totally unnecessary. In a minute, the Misfits are gonna wheel Oklahoma's cage out to the ring, so all this did was show us that they had Oklahoma in a cage about 60 seconds before we'd find that out anyway.
01:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, most people know the Misfits basically from their logo, which so many people have on shirts and like bumper stickers that don't actually, couldn't name a single Misfit song. Okay. Which is kind of funny. They remind me of those characters that are in the movie, Weird Science, when they're trying to make them look cool and everything. They're like really bad post-apocalyptic like people. It's odd. Isn't there a cartoon with something in the Misfits?
01:07:32
Speaker
I'm not sure. It's not the same ones, but yeah. Okay. Our fifth match is Vampiro with the Misfits versus Dr. Death Steve Williams with Oklahoma, technically. If Vampiro wins, he gets five minutes in the ring with Oklahoma. The referee for this match is Charles Robinson.
01:07:54
Speaker
So the previous month's show, Oklahoma debuted to the joy of basically just Ed Ferreira and Vince Russo. In their debut, Oklahoma talks crap about Vampiro and that sort of sets things off. He basically, after them, Vampiro was the face. Believe it or not, Vampiro was the face in the situation.
01:08:11
Speaker
I know. Maybe there's never the face with you, Bob. In the storyline, he is definitely the face. This leads to a very strange match on Nitro between Dr. Steve Williams and Jerry Only, who is the lead guy in The Misfits, by the way. Oh, okay. It makes reading of Wikipedia page very confusing because you'll see sentences begin with the word only. And I don't realize it's his last name half the time I read it.
01:08:34
Speaker
I just might. Okay. It's part of the bill. Bob is even pure one to get his hand at the Oklahoma. So the only way they would do it is this scenario. They dug out from 1985, just like the idea of the varsity club. I'm here winning Oklahoma alone, but the future UWA world heavyweight champion must first beat the former UWF heavyweight champion. There you go.
01:08:57
Speaker
more basic rock the show is killing me loudly with its songs oh as far as i can tell this is not a misfit song which would make way too much sense yeah i did remember where misfits came from okay it was the opposing band that went against gem and the holograms oh you're right that's true yeah you're right my head hurts nice
01:09:26
Speaker
Again, this whole show is a cartoon. Yes, very much so.
01:09:30
Speaker
The green lighting for Vampiro's entrance looks cool anyway. It seems like colored lighting is this show's new cool thing. And as mentioned, the Misfits bring Oklahoma out in his cage, rendering their interview totally pointless. Oklahoma's microphone is on, and he apologizes to Tony for everything he's ever said and tells him to call somebody to get him away from the Misfits. Tony says sorry, no one would listen to him since he's a B-teamer, which I guess is referencing an earlier Oklahoma insult. It is, yeah.
01:09:58
Speaker
Dr. Death, Steve Williams, is still in intimidating presence years after we last saw him. Vampiro dives off the top of Oklahoma's cage onto Williams as he enters. Oklahoma calls the match from his cage. They fight outside until Vampiro hits a sidekick and throws Williams in. The misfits harass Oklahoma, and he asks Tony if anyone ever bothers him at the announce table. Tony says no.
01:10:22
Speaker
Have either of them ever watched a wrestling show? Yeah. Even this show, really? Yeah. Vampiro and Williams trade chops, and Oklahoma repeatedly yells, Chop! Chop! Chop!
01:10:36
Speaker
Weird bit as Williams just kind of stands there waiting for Vampiro to hit him. Williams sends Vampiro butt over teakettle with some three-point stance charges and hits more chops for more Oklahoma yelling. Vampiro dodges a corner charge and Oklahoma yells, Miss! Miss! Miss! That was a little funny.
01:10:55
Speaker
I think he has his own echo. Yeah. He's doing the Jim Ross thing that Jim Ross will sometimes much more rarely repeat a move named three times to emphasize it. Yeah. But that's the only thing that he knows that Jim Ross does, that and calling something vicious. Yeah. So he just repeats those two things ad infinitum. It's the Didic Harvey School of Impressions. Pick one thing someone's done once in their life and then make that all they ever do. Yeah.
01:11:21
Speaker
Vampiro backs Suplex for two, but he's slow to go up top and Williams wins a brawl with an eye rake and gets a Superplex, prompting the Misfits to interfere like the best babyfaces do. Williams disposes of them with ease. Oklahoma rightly points out that the Misfits really should have gotten Vampiro DQ'd there, but they don't.
01:11:41
Speaker
Vampiro recovers and hits a spin kick, but Williams counters another with a back suplex, then beats the hell out of Vampiro on the ground. Robinson tries to pull him away, so Williams grabs him and throws him to the mat, getting DQ'd. Vampiro wins.
01:11:56
Speaker
Dr. Death keeps beating up Vampiro while Oklahoma complains about the DQ and his upcoming match, but Oklahoma realizes that Vampiro is down and maybe he can take him after all. Security comes out to encourage Dr. Death to leave. Oklahoma congratulates Dr. Death, but Dr. Death shakes his cage in the barricades as Williams is ushered backstage. Thoughts on this one? There's two ways to look at this match. If you can watch it without the sound on,
01:12:23
Speaker
It's actually kind of decent. There's good back and forth bits with Dr. Death. He really comes up best in situation. They go to buddy, because other than being dumb enough to get up to queued, he does his moves, right? He has, he has his menace down. He has his facial down. He's clearly a veteran that knows what he's doing in a match like this.
01:12:43
Speaker
Vampiro, to his credit, takes a pretty vicious beating from Dr. Dessie Williams, as most people do. Even Ron Simmons, the guy who was taking a beating from him. Oh yeah, yeah. And I've seen Vader take some blows from him, so that's just what you do. You just get a beat from him. His name is probably a clue. Yeah. I thought it was like an immerseable thing, like quick death. Ah, okay.
01:13:06
Speaker
So yeah, if you watch it without the sound, it's actually a recent match. It is still the weird thing that the Misfits, while they are admittedly punk rock, sort of. If it makes sense, they wouldn't go by the rules. It is weird that Charles Robinson just is okay with it. He used to be a corrupt referee for a player, so maybe I should sort of hold over. Maybe, maybe. Once you're here, you can't really stop being healed fully. Yeah. Now, of course, the way most people are going to watch this match is with sound on, as you would assume, and Oklahoma ruins it.
01:13:37
Speaker
Whatever enjoyment you can get, for the most part, is overrun or superseded by Oklahoma shouting and being really annoying in the cage. You think, given how much the misfits constantly go after him, that just once they would knock his headset mic off. That should be kind of funny. Yeah.
01:13:58
Speaker
I guess that's why I can't do it on the show. Yeah. I think the only two good things about his act are the one miss miss miss bit that was actually kind of funny. And Tony Schiavone's general reactions to the gimmick I think are generally pretty funny. Yeah.
01:14:14
Speaker
sort of sardonic response to him. Not worth it, but yeah. Shavani reacts well to the gimmick, but I could be watching Shavani reacting well to Bobby Heenan making good jokes. I'd much rather have that. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I actually did like Dr. Death's portrayal, whatever character he's manifesting right now. You know, some sort of caveman destroyer. Yes. Pretty much, yeah.
01:14:41
Speaker
I want to say that Oklahoma's little John's impersonation needs some work. He's like, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops. I don't know.
Announcers and Secondary Characters
01:14:51
Speaker
He was a little distracting, but at the same time, you know, what else are they going to have him do the whole time? If they're going to have him be part of the announced team, he's got to do something that is like have him stand out. So you know that he's, he's doing that because, you know, they're not focusing on him as a secondary character.
01:15:12
Speaker
Honestly, the saving grace for this is Dr. Dez's performance. Not that, I almost said, Vampiro. It doesn't matter really. Like, you know, he just drinks fire. That was the only reason why this was bearable for me. And at some points enjoyable, but brief.
01:15:35
Speaker
Yeah, for me, this had a few interesting spots, but it didn't really get enough time to build any kind of cohesive story, and the story it had was confusing.
Confusing Roles in Vampiro vs. Dr. Death
01:15:44
Speaker
Vampiro and the Misfits are the faces, but they're the ones breaking the rules to try and double or triple team the heel, Dr. Death.
01:15:51
Speaker
And is Vampiro strong or weak? Early on, he seems to be fighting even with or even overwhelming Dr. Death, but then it starts looking like he has absolutely no hope without interference and just gets lucky that Dr. Death is having far too much fun beating him up to be willing to stop for the referee. Action-wise, this was okay and it has a few good spots, but the story made little sense and the Oklahoma commentary got old very, very fast. Yeah.
01:16:19
Speaker
It's kind of funny, he was thinking about this when we watched it. So, Vent Russo, after all this happened, ended up in TNA. And he was the one that brings us the King of the Mountain match. It's a reverse ladder match. We have to climb a ladder to hang a tile to win, rather than pulling the tile down. But there's a whole other side to it where you have to pin somebody to be eligible to hang a title. And the person who was pinned goes in the penalty box, which is a big cage right in front of the ring.
01:16:47
Speaker
This must be the inspiration for at least that part of it, than through so. Even the point where Vampiro is jumping off the cage at people. Because that's also a very common spot between the mountain edges. I would imagine so, yeah. Something came out of this. Yes. Positive or negative.
Oklahoma's Antics and Performances
01:17:03
Speaker
So, because of Vampiro winning that match, our sixth match is Vampiro with the Misfits versus Oklahoma without Dr. Death. Referee for this match is Charles Robinson.
01:17:17
Speaker
Oklahoma begs to be let free of the cage before Vampiro can recover, but it takes a while for Doug Dillinger to come over and unlock the cage. At least he still got there faster than he did for Disco Inferno. Yes, true. Oklahoma gets in the ring and takes off his hat and commentates for his own moves as he attacks Vampiro with kicks, a DDT that looks more like Vampiro slamming him, and an imitation Garvin stomp that isn't near as brutal.
01:17:42
Speaker
Vampiro recovers and slaps him down, and he tries to escape, but the Misfits roll him back in and knock his microphone off. Oklahoma punches Vampiro in the crotch, but Vampiro comes back with a Nerunagi. The Misfits come in and beat up Oklahoma, while Vampiro puts on Oklahoma's hat and yells to the crowd in a failed attempt to have a personality.
01:18:04
Speaker
Vampiro and the Misfits pinball Oklahoma around and Vampiro hits the nail in the coffin and pins Oklahoma. Robinson seems a little confused but counts to three to give Vampiro the win. Vampiro and the Misfits kind of stand around doing nothing until one at least does a weird little stomping dance and they put Oklahoma's hat back on him. Thoughts on that one?
01:18:25
Speaker
So my big issue here is there's way too long of a gap between the two matches. This whole thing is to make Dr. Dusty Williams super strong, which I'm not opposed to. I know it doesn't really go anywhere, so it's kind of pointless in the long run. So he has to be down for a while to sell. Dr. Dust beat down, I guess, is the idea, and to make Oklahoma confident, but they could have gotten there a lot faster.
01:18:51
Speaker
There's thankfully not too much Oklahoma actually trying to wrestle in or fight in this match. There's enough there where you get the character because thankfully he's not doing commentary while in the ring. Well he is for the first half of the match. But yeah, not nearly as much as when he's in the cage. Right, yeah. He's easily distracted and or winded enough that he can't do both at the same time. My other thing is it feels like this should be a much quicker squash.
01:19:15
Speaker
Like, Vampiro tended to be down. They get to the element of the cage pretty quickly and he like pops up and hits a couple moves and pins him. Yeah, at worst, do it where it goes up to the point where Vampiro slaps and he rolls out and the misfits roll him back in and just go to the finish from there. Yes. But instead he punches Vampiro in the balls and gets a little tiny bit more offense at least. Yeah. Kind of drags on for a while.
01:19:39
Speaker
Yes. That was good as a lot of time we got this match like 14 years ago. Yeah. That was JJ Dillon. Yes.
01:19:48
Speaker
Like you said, they could have shortened this considerably, even if it was just move him around all four corners diagonally twice. So it looks like he's covered the entire gamut of what they could do. And they could easily have each misfit be at a corner and someone in the middle just throws them back and forth and then they just do a finishing move and be done with it. Yeah.
01:20:10
Speaker
And they could have done more stuff with a cage too, I think. And they need a match. They could have pulled out some final fight moves and it would have been better.
01:20:20
Speaker
So, was this actually a match or not? That's the question I had at the end of it. No. Robinson's out there, but he doesn't really do anything even when Oklahoma's getting blatantly beat up by a whole group of guys. And he actually seems very confused when Vampiro goes for a pin. So I wonder if he thought it's just five minutes to beat Oklahoma up, not an actual match. That is generally how that works. But last time we saw this at 85, it was definitely an actual match.
01:20:47
Speaker
But yeah, in the time between the two, until we haven't covered yet, they'll do it where you get five minutes alone with them in a cage or this or that. And it's not really a match, it's just to get your hands to the manager. So they seem to have a miscommunication about whether this is legitimately a match or not, which is weird.
01:21:04
Speaker
Also, if it's not a match, then why would Oklahoma be willing to get into the ring with him in the first place if he can't get a win over him? Yeah, like he could easily pin him in the beginning while he's still down. That makes sense to me. Right, but if it's not a match, then he can't pin him. But it apparently is a match, except that the referee is confused by it being a match.
01:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, I just don't get how this works. It sucked anyway. Vampiro gets beat up by a manager slash announcer until suddenly he just decides not to be beat up anymore and wins. The story continues to make no sense as the faces quintuple team the heel. This was short, but there's still no reason it should have gone as long as it did. It was pretty painfully bad. And if the misfits were going to jump in in mass anyway, why not just do it at the start when he's beating up Vampiro?
01:21:55
Speaker
You're blatantly going to do this, so just do it. They have faith in Vampiro. They shouldn't have, apparently. They live more than you. Yeah. John has been driven speechless by all of us. If I say a word, it just makes it seem like they deserve some words. Okay.
01:22:17
Speaker
It's hard to find a lot of stuff on The Misfits and WSW. There's a couple of mysteries as to why they come in and then why they leave. Supposedly, this is all Vampiro's idea. He saw them, presented the idea of them being wrestling. They thought TV exposure would be great for them, and apparently Jerry Only, the lead guy, really gained an idea of being a big wrestling superstar. Apparently, he mostly lost that motivation after they put him in the match I mentioned, like a Dr. Death in a cage.
01:22:42
Speaker
when they got hurt pretty badly. Basically most people at 99 in a match with Dr. Death get hurt. I would say he was still here, so he wasn't seriously injured, but enough that it kind of softened the thing for him.
01:22:56
Speaker
Second thing is supposedly the misfits left because WCW wanted to trademark all the stuff around them, like their name and their logo. Okay. And they're like, uh, no, I want to do that. Yeah. I can see that being a problem. Yes. Because they were in our, are still an active band today in like 25th iteration, but still.
01:23:15
Speaker
The more bizarre one I'm only going to mention because the people's names are kind of funny is Kord of Vampiro's a few years ago. He claims the other conflict is that the guitar player Misfits fell for Randy Savage's girlfriend slash valet at the time, Kord George. I mention this only because the guitarist's name is Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein. Wow. Dang.
01:23:43
Speaker
That's a name. Yes. But yes, that's three reasons why they may have left. I tend to lean more towards the middle one, but it is funny that there's a guy in Frankenstein that rents the lady in Gorgeous George. As far as the actual storyline, Vampyr and the Misfits, you hang around a little longer after this, but not much. Get involved in storyline with David Flair, so I guess a step up? That's hard to say. It's a lateral move, maybe? Yeah.
01:24:11
Speaker
Oklahoma was on from this to challenging for the Cruiserweight title. That is the real thing that happened. Oh my gosh.
Backstage Tensions: Harlem Heat
01:24:19
Speaker
Who's it held by at that point? Medusa. Oh, okay. He challenged her on the January show. Wow. I wish I was kidding. We go backstage. We're Kurt Hennig, Vincent, now Shane. Get it.
01:24:35
Speaker
and the tag team called Creative Control are talking to the powers that be. Laparca stands on a chair in the background like he's an office decoration or something. Lord knows the office set needed one, there's literally nothing in there other than what looks to be a cheap table serving as a desk.
01:24:52
Speaker
Henig asks if the powers have suggestions. Powers apologizes because his head is someplace else, and something big is going down tonight and tells them to go out there and take care of things to become number one contenders. Everybody leaves, including Leparka with Cher. That was pointless. We go to Mike Tenet, who is with Harlem Heat and their lady friend, Midnight.
01:25:14
Speaker
Harlem Heat, tonight you're taking on creative control to determine the number one contenders to the WCW World Tag Team titles. However, it seems that as of late, there's a little friction between the three of you.
01:25:35
Speaker
Why don't you tell it like it is? Don't sugarcoat it, brother. Why don't you tell it like it is? You know, everything was OK to this overbearing, hard-haired grandstander guy with the group. You know what I'm saying? I don't know what I ever did to you. But if you have something to say to me, say it to my face. Look, man, me and you have been up and down the road. We done fought our way to the top. We did everything we had to do in this business. But you know what? Tonight, I ain't watching your back tonight. What? You talking about me? Come back here.
01:26:05
Speaker
simple little segment here that just established the dissension in Harlem Heat over their tag partner. Booker is approving of her and Stevie Ray is not. This did what it needed to do, I guess, but there's not really anything else to say about it, I think. Other than there's a real problem in this one with everyone starting to talk before the microphone is actually in front of them. So our seventh match is Creative Control. That's Gerald and Patrick. Get it? With Kurt Henig, with Shane.
01:26:35
Speaker
versus Harlem Heat Booker T and Stevie Ray with midnight for the right to be the number one contenders to the WCW tag team titles. The referee for this match is Nick Patrick. It is a six person match for the two person tag team titles. Yes. Slightly weird.
01:26:59
Speaker
Midnight was another power plant call-up. Thank you, assassin number one. Yep. And Tina with Harlan Heat, as we established in the various promo, Stevie Ray did not like her. Really, he didn't like her before she really did anything, I guess, because he's clearly going to be healing the storyline. It's really him having a relationship with her and Booker T. keeping her around that causes the problems. So it's no means her to end the situation. Stevie Ray still thinks that girls have cooties. Yeah.
01:27:30
Speaker
Maybe. As for Creative Control, they were Tag Team Champions about three weeks before this show, but they lost the titles to Bret Hart and Goldberg, who then lost them the next week to The Outsiders.
01:27:45
Speaker
So they want their title shot back, although as previous teams, I'm not sure why they don't have another one. But even though they work for the powers that be. Yeah, that's a little weird. If they give anyone would be able to say we get the X champions return match, it would be the guys that literally work for the guy that's controlling the company.
01:28:04
Speaker
Creative Control are two bald guys in suits and sunglasses, and they're named after Gerald Briscoe, who we saw way back at Starrcade 83, and Pat Patterson, Vince McMahon's henchman characters in the WWF. Vincent, now going by Shane, is named after Shane McMahon, Vince McMahon's son. Oh, I thought it was the Western Shane. If only. Creative Control are twin brothers Ron and Don Harris, who will later wrestle under their own names.
01:28:32
Speaker
I like Headegg's golden black outfit tonight. That looks pretty cool. Yeah. Booker T comes out on his own. The lights go out, a bell tolls, and when the lights come back on, midnight is suddenly there. Stevie Ray doesn't show. I'm gonna call Creative Control A and B because the announcers can't even tell me which one is which. They fight with just the front of their shirts untucked, which looks weird.
01:28:55
Speaker
Booker and control A start, with A landing early blows by eating a Booker spin kick for one. B saves, and A tags him and holds Booker for punches. Booker soon fights him off with a flying forearm and works the arm, then tags Midnight. Midnight uses kicks and basic wrestling to counter B's hair pulling, then tags Booker. He then clarifies that Gerald is the bald creative control member. Thanks, Bobby.
01:29:21
Speaker
It's a shame one of them is not really fat and one of them is really buskill that make it easier to tell them apart. Yeah. A trips Booker from outside on a whip. Well, Henig has Nick and Patrick distracted. So Booker beats him up until Henig comes to help.
01:29:36
Speaker
Henik tagged in and he and Control trade off working over Booker until Booker hits a jumping axe kick and tags midnight. She does well until Shane distracts her and Henik clotheslines her out of the ring. Control beat her up outside and I lose track of which is A and B. Booker saves and they flee.
01:29:53
Speaker
Henig drags Midnight to the apron by her hair and he and Control wear Midnight down until she manages to push Henig all the way across the ring to tag Booker to a great crowd reaction. Except that Patrick somehow missed the tag despite watching her intently the whole way. So he sends Booker out. Henig and Control keep beating Midnight up as Stevie Ray comes down. Booker, still angry, tells Stevie to leave and then just ignores him.
01:30:18
Speaker
Control keeps doing the one guy holds midnight for the other strike double team because that's the only one they appear to know. Pretty much. Control gets zero off a series of elbow drops as Booker saves so fast.
01:30:32
Speaker
Midnight dodges an awful second rope elbow drop by one of the control guys. Stevie argues with Nick Patrick, but Midnight tags Booker and he beats up all the heels and hits a beautiful Harlem sidekick. Booker gets a spinebuster on a control guy, as Patrick finally stops talking to Stevie. It gets one, but Henick saves by punching Booker in the face with taped up brass knuckles.
01:30:55
Speaker
Stevie argues with Midnight outside distracting her as Henig escapes before Patrick can notice the weapon and a control guy gets the three count and the win. Creative control are the number one contenders. Midnight goes to check on the unconscious Booker and Stevie Ray just walks off leaving them there. Thoughts on this one?
01:31:15
Speaker
So there's definitely some good action here. It's not a complete waste. I'm Booker, literally and figuratively is an uphill battle here because he's got to wrestle obviously against the, uh, but also against, then to a story that puts him in the situation. It's rare that I once he'd be re-tagging it out of a match because he has so little, he really gives to a match, but he does give something. It's just weird that this, this is such a big show. Theoretically the biggest show of the year is obviously some debate over that.
01:31:41
Speaker
Among people that you've worked there you would think you would have had Parliament heat Russell together wrestling bad happen, but they still win and then the title match the betrayal happens not yeah around
01:31:52
Speaker
Midnight, to her credit, has very limited often, but everything she can do is actually done really well. Yes, absolutely. And she takes a pretty good bump, the one she takes from Henig, where she closes the line from behind and flips over the ropes of the outside. Other than the weird thing where the bell tolls and she appears like Bray Wyatt in the ring, I like her a lot. Not much coming from there fortunately, but it's nice to see her get at least a little moment here.
01:32:16
Speaker
We have the, again, the lazy brass knuckles maybe possibly wrapped in tape, which would make them less effective, but I guess the way they're so deadly, if shoes can knock you out, brass knuckles, which are actual weapons that are illegal in many countries, have to be taped up so they don't make your head explode upon it. Yeah, exactly, yeah. This would be a bloodier show than Starrcade 85 if that happened. That'd be a hard one to top, but it would do it, yeah.
01:32:43
Speaker
It's just a shame that the whole match is just so busy. Well, with like six people in and around the match, not even counting to be ready, you should look at the end. If they had the singles match, like if you had Kurt Henneke and Booker T, great match, that would be great, yes. Or even an even match, release the stories, playing throughout the match, of he really being unsure when to tag or something like that, I would be more interested in this weird two and three handicap match.
01:33:10
Speaker
Kind of a confusing match because at first I didn't realize, I know they were talking about handicap and everything and I'm like, at first I didn't realize it was three versus two because like, you know, obviously I was looking at thing A and thing B and it was infuriating me that the obvious gimmick they could have is who's the legal person? And the only tag that seems to be questioned is where Midnight tries to tag out. Yeah, true. I thought they could have played that differently, but hey, surprise me.
01:33:42
Speaker
I actually did like Midnight's entrance. I thought it was different. It was something slightly ominous about it. Definitely, it was the only character that kind of just appeared, which I thought was great.
01:33:52
Speaker
I thought that the promo before it was a good lead-in for the drama that was supposed to unfold. The whole time, I was like, Stevie, come on, man. Just give them a chance. And I was a little upset. I thought when Midnight was crawling to tag Booker T, that she was gonna be held back and Stevie was gonna reach in and he would tag himself in and then redeem himself kind of thing.
01:34:17
Speaker
I thought that would have been a much cooler way of using it, and they could still lose and everything, but I thought it would have been an unexpected way of getting him in the match, just to show that, you know what, we're going to put our difference aside and move forward. But when they didn't do that, when I thought they lost that cool opportunity, it went downhill for me. Yeah. Because it's kind of, he tells us before the match, I don't like midnight.
01:34:44
Speaker
and I'm not gonna help you, then we get to the match and he doesn't like midnight and he doesn't help them. There's no change over the course of the night with him. It would give him an opportunity to redeem himself with Booker T. Redeem himself with the audience and potentially open up a dialogue to incorporating big night in their future endeavors. Yeah. It would have been an acknowledgement. You're part of this team, I see what you're doing. I think that would have been a much more enjoyable storyline for me.
01:35:15
Speaker
You either want to have him actually try to turn back good, even in the short term, or at least act like they turn good and then betray them more overtly. Like he could have been there for the hot tag.
01:35:27
Speaker
I think he's gonna fight and then turn around and tagged Booker and left, for instance. Yeah. Or he could have, you know, gotten tagged in and then just walked out and lost the account out. Or he could have laid down. But we've had enough of people laying down, I think, from last year or so. Fair enough. You know, I kind of expect it, though. Yeah, Booker and headache made this watchable, but that's about all I can say for it.
01:35:50
Speaker
Creative Control have nothing, just the most basic of punches and kicks. These guys have actually been a tag team together for years by this point, but it feels like they're just starting out. I can't believe they were in the ring so much when Kurt Hennig was there. Midnight didn't do a heck of a lot more, but as you noted, she's very new in her career, so that's less of a surprise. And she did a good job selling, and like you said, just about everything she actually does is performed very well.
01:36:18
Speaker
The Stevie Ray bit was kind of interesting, and he did a decent job of leaving it questionable whether he was actually trying to interfere with Booker M. Midnight, or just accidentally choosing bad moments to argue. Until he visibly tried to grab Midnight at the end, at least. Okay, storyline, bad match.
01:36:36
Speaker
There's one weird spot in there. Midnight does a dropkick to, I think, one of the great control guys. She actually has a couple, I think. And second one, she stays in the ground longer than I was expecting. And Henne runs and attacks her afterwards. Yeah. I'm wondering if he was supposed to be in there quicker.
01:36:54
Speaker
Cause he seems like he's selling the landing from Dropkick, like suddenly it's a really powerful thing against her. And he runs in, take advantage of that, whereas it felt like it was supposed to be the Dropkick and he runs it quickly to get her while she's getting up. Yeah, I can see that.
01:37:10
Speaker
Timing is definitely a thing tonight. Yes, for sure. That mistag still bothers me. Yeah. He is literally watching the entire time the whole way there, and yet somehow he misses the fact that they tag. And he doesn't look away. No. He's just like, I am so focused on the person trying to make the tag that I'm not watching her hand actually make the tag.
01:37:35
Speaker
What? Maybe Henig yelled, they didn't tag really quickly after they tagged me. He's like, huh, well, maybe they didn't. Maybe. Yeah. He's like, I thought I saw that, but. You could have sold it by looking away real quickly. He was distracted by something. Yeah. That's one of the worst excuses for that spot that I have ever seen. Yeah. It's pretty bad. Yeah. It's just such a large lead up to a disappointment. Same thing with my miss storyline. Yeah.
01:38:02
Speaker
Uh, we'll get too much stories surrounding this, but suffice to say, Scott Hall is missing on the second night tour after this show. And there's a bit where they did Dylan confronts Kevin Nash and Jeff Jared in the back. He explains he's just the messenger. They really cut in after like his line. So we don't hear what he says to them first. We just sent them reacting to what he apparently set off camera.
01:38:29
Speaker
Maybe Kevin actually annoyed him, but he's told them that they had to give up the tag titles because Scott Hall was not around. So he just like, flippantly throws the belt at him and they punch him in the stomach. So the tag titles are vacated, is the point of all that. Which makes wing number one contendership completely pointless. Because they hold tournament to determine the tag titles. Come on! You can't even like, give the number one contenders an automatic like, finals thing? It doesn't seem to matter if they did.
01:39:00
Speaker
As far as the holiday situation, as you can tell, obviously things don't get fixed between the two of them. Unfortunately, Midnight doesn't play too much of a role after January, February. He's not around for much after that. I think they do have to send her back for more training and then stuff happened to the company going under so they don't rear it back, unfortunately.
01:39:19
Speaker
What this leads to is TV Ray quitting the team and forming his own version, Harlem Heat 2000. Yes. The giant air quotes, much improved in their quotes, version of Harlem Heat with the former Ahmed Johnson, AKA Big T, creative control as of based on stuff that happens after the show turns face and feeds with the varsity club. And by turning face, I mean they stopped wearing the white dress shirts over their black tank tops. Okay. That's what that face is.
01:39:52
Speaker
Tony throws to a video of Dustin Rhodes' return as Seven. Yeah. Oh my gosh, this gimmick.
Dustin Rhodes' Seven Gimmick Controversy
01:40:00
Speaker
Rhodes returned to WCW after a stint in the WWF as Goldust, and the idea to bring him back in was this creepy Seven character who was dressed all in black with a wide-brimmed hat with his skin painted all white, basically like the villains from the movie Dark City. Yes. I mean, almost exactly like the villains from the movie Dark City. Suitably similar to Dark City.
01:40:22
Speaker
They ran loads of promo videos with him creepily floating outside this little kid's bedroom window at night, including one where he touches the window and the kid touches the same point, and then the kid's eyes turn all black. They're building up him being, I don't know, a demonic pedophile or something?
01:40:39
Speaker
Anyway, it comes to his first actual appearance and there's this big entrance with smoke and fire and he floats on wires to the ring. Then he just utterly drops the gimmick and cuts a promo calling it silly crap and blaming the powers that be for giving him the gimmick. It's one of the strangest false starts, I guess, in wrestling history. Supposedly the issue comes down to Turner executives seeing the vignettes and they're saying they're going, what the hell is this?
01:41:10
Speaker
thinking exactly what you were thinking of being a demonic pedophile or some sort of child kidnapping person. They don't want to be a horror movie character, maybe. Yeah. Which, to a certain extent, is fine, but the direction they take it where he's floating outside the kid's window and then, yeah, mind controlling or something. It is seriously creepy. It's just possession. It's not dirty. He's just taking over his soul. But it's nine tenths of the law, John.
01:41:39
Speaker
Nine whole tenths. But yeah, supposedly the executives didn't like that and they told him you have to drop this or, you know, one day away from you. So their solution was to have him come out of seven and then he really dropped again. Rather than just ignoring what they had done and having him come out of Justin Rhodes. Yeah. So he's scary poppins his way into the ring and then he drops it. Yes, exactly. Awesome.
01:42:05
Speaker
They seem to spend around $50,000 to $100,000 in all the work between shooting those vignettes and having them float in the ring on wires. Just a waste of money. Yeah. I will not lie to you. I paused the show and I said, this has to be my MVP before I knew who it was. I was like, whatever this is, I am interested. Yeah. And that's hard to say on this show.
01:42:34
Speaker
I have to say, Al, though, I'm not sure about your story on one point. You say that the Turner executives saw this gimmick and told the WCW guys, no, you can't do it. So what you're saying is that Turner has ever actually watched WCW. Yeah, maybe. I don't buy that because the WCW stayed in business for this long. True.
01:42:57
Speaker
Anyway, the video package covers Rhodes dropping the 7 gimmick and beating up Jeff Jarrett and Jarrett challenging him to a bunkhouse brawl at Starrcade.
01:43:14
Speaker
So he's a natural foil to send after Rhodes, who, to be fair, does also attack Jared as you saw in the video package. And he cost them a spot in the world title term that they were holding the previous month. So there's more back and forth between them.
01:43:30
Speaker
And there's a fusing thing, which I won't spend too much time talking about, the fact that they build up the Bunkhouse Brawl as being the match that Dusty Roach invented, although it's not exactly like any of the Bunkhouse matches we had. Yeah. Or aware of. It's sort of vaguely like it, but it's not enough that I'm like, oh, of course, it's your father's match. He's obviously his most connected with the Bunkhouse Stampede, which we haven't seen yet, but heard about at length from a cowboy and well, a guitar played in the background and briefly had teased at the end of the show we had to watch.
01:43:59
Speaker
but they're also bunkhouse matches, which are generally singles matches with hardcore weaponry and such. Yeah, because bunkhouse AP's are battle royales with weapons. Yeah, a bunkhouse brawl appears to be nothing until now, so I guess they're probably referring to a bunkhouse match. Yeah, I guess. But never bunk beds. No. Only bunkhouses. It's a house atop another house. Yes. It's poorly designed. Or, you know, an apartment building.
01:44:28
Speaker
the whole house is so different. Fair point. We go to Mike Tenet, who is backstage with Dustin Rhodes, who wears a Dusty Rhodes t-shirt. Tenet says Dusty Rhodes made the bunkhouse brawl famous. Dustin Rhodes says when he came back he was told Dusty was no longer here, because that's business. Rhodes says that's bad business, and Jarrett's been bad-mouthing his father, but tonight Jarrett bites the dust.
01:44:55
Speaker
Jared attacks to cut off the promo, and the two start brawling as I guess we're starting the match. Another quick promo here, nothing really to speak of with it. Rose does fine letting us know he's angry, but there's only so much you can do in like 30 seconds. I'm wondering if Jon really wants that shirt he's wearing. That was a kind of great shirt, actually. It is a nice shirt. It's like Dusty Rhodes Tour in 1999 or something. Yeah. I'll see if I can find that somewhere online.
01:45:23
Speaker
No, I'm staring at that joke. I mean, it's like Dusty Rhodes and it's a really weird Dusty Rhodes shirt. If there was a tea kettle shirt, I would be more interested. Yes. To be perfectly honest. Even if it's just like a picture of a tea kettle and has like little arrows. There you go. That would be a great shirt, actually.
Bunkhouse Brawl Highlights
01:45:43
Speaker
So our eighth match, which is already in progress, is Dustin Rhodes versus Jeff Jarrett in a bunkhouse brawl. That's a no DQ false count anywhere match. The referee is Billy Silverman.
01:45:54
Speaker
Dressed in street clothes, they brawl out onto the stage and fight past a ladder, and Jarrett runs Rhodes into a barricade. Jarrett gently removes a guitar from a wheelbarrow full of weapons, then runs the wheelbarrow into Rhodes' knee. They fight down the entrance ramp, each using the wheelbarrow, and head into the ring. Rhodes grabs some boards and a bull rope with cowbell from the wheelbarrow, and uses those to beat up Jarrett. They end up fighting at, and on, the announce table. See, Tony? It does happen. Yes.
01:46:22
Speaker
Silverman yells at them to get in the ring, even though this is false count anywhere. He's a stickler for how normal matches work. He's very confused.
01:46:29
Speaker
Rhodes leaves the cowbell outside as they go back in the ring, but keeps beating Jared up. Not that I want a bloodbath, but it feels kind of weird that Jared isn't bleeding after all of that. Rhodes throws powder at Jared, and whips Jared with his belt. Silverman warns Rhodes, so Rhodes whips him too, since it's no disqualification. Rhodes actually duct-tapes Silverman to the ropes, and then when Silverman yells at him, he duct-tapes Silverman's mouth shut. Now I assume that was stuff he would have done at Seven?
01:47:01
Speaker
I did find that spot hilarious. Yeah. Rhodes chokes Jarrett with his leather chaps, but Jarrett mule kicks Rhodes in the crotch and takes over, using the chaps and a board against Rhodes as Henig walks down to the ring. A piece of the board goes flying so I hope nobody got hit.
01:47:18
Speaker
There's three shows in the row of objects flying towards the crowd at high velocity. By the way, where are chaps on the clothing turned into weapons chart? Um, weird when you use them to whip, but I guess okay when you choke with them. Hmm. They're less effective than the boot, correct? Yes, I will. The boots are a knockout. Okay. I just want to make sure I know how that works. Depends on the length of the fringe. There you go. Oh yeah, that's true. It's its power level. Henig Free Silverman, taking the tape off his mouth, looked like it sucked.
01:47:48
Speaker
as Jared gets a sleeper hold. Rhodes fades, but his hand comes up on the third check, and he flips the bird for good measure.
01:47:56
Speaker
Rhodes outfights Jarrad and gets a big side slam for two, but Henig breaks that up and several other Rhodes pins besides, even pulling Silverman out of the ring after Rhodes gets two off of kicking Jarrad in the crotch. So, Rhodes props Henig in the corner and kicks him in the crotch too. Jarrad and Rhodes fight back up to the entrance ramp, and Rhodes climbs the set under the jumbotron to just kind of hop off and lightly kick Jarrad. That was underwhelming. I really don't know what he was going for, that was weird. Yeah.
01:48:25
Speaker
Jarrett crawls over to Chekhov's guitar and climbs up Chekhov's ladder as Henik ambushes Rhodes. Rhodes bulldogs Henik down right in front of the ladder and Jarrett jumps off and nails Rhodes with the guitar for the three count and the win. Jarrett's weird country rock music plays as he poses with his broken guitar on the ladder. Silverman almost trips over Rhodes while raising Jarrett's hands. Thoughts on this one?
01:48:49
Speaker
I'll give them credit, it's a fairly creative brawl. They use a pretty wide variety of weapons. They don't over- or you use them at the point where they've lost all meanings like cookie sheets and, you know, trash can lids. Yeah. Or just, they mean nothing to be at this point, it's just- Like earlier tonight. Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is definitely a fulfillment of what you're missing from that first one. Yeah. Absolutely.
01:49:13
Speaker
I think my biggest problem with a match is really in the second half of it, where Kernigh is at ringside and constantly interfering, although would not interfere as much as he could. He doesn't just get in the ring and beat up Dustin Rhodes with Jeff Jarrett. He just keeps interrupting the referee's count. And Dustin Rhodes, ever the stupid babyface, keeps trying to make pins, knowing full well the guy's just got to do it again.
01:49:40
Speaker
that George Bush and the full me one shame on you line there somewhere. It is really funny to watch him push the wheelbarrow and very gently set the guitar down. Because those things are made of like, like the weakest balsa wood. There's a bit in TNA where he has guitars that get it with a little pyro on them. And famously one point he does the accurate the pyro on it like big sparkler, and the bag of tar blows out.
01:50:05
Speaker
So cheaply made, he just throws it down and keeps going. Wow. He can't possibly anything with that until the one shot for it, which is kind of funny. I will give the match one point and retroactively give another point to a match from earlier, which is that when Finley and Knobs were fighting Ming, Knobs could throw into a table randomly propped against the wall, which he sort of breaks partway and is sort of sitting there.
01:50:30
Speaker
We're what, five matches later? That's still back there. Yeah, that's true. And Dustin is starting to do it. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Likewise, we get to see the surge can container back there.
01:50:43
Speaker
because this is the late nineties and Serge is the thing. Yes. I think I like the first third of the match really strongly. It just gets too predictable that there's no way he can win without completely immobilizing Henig, which he tries, but it doesn't really do anything. He does his, I'm kicking you the balls, I'm clearly kicking the turnbuckle pad underneath your balls, which I think would keep you out for a while. Then maybe it's an even courageous thing and it's just not effective anymore. I don't know.
01:51:13
Speaker
So it's weird that he takes them out and then a minute later he's still attacked behind by them. Yeah. I feel like that should have happened earlier in the status from the constant interference and then surprise he's back rather than surprise he's back. Like you've just here. Fair point. I like a lot of it, but at some point it's just too obvious. He's robbed.
01:51:38
Speaker
No, I don't like the two verse one thing. I know that that's part of the deal. But after seeing his cool intro with fire and everything, I was disappointed that he wasn't wrestling as seven. And then they didn't give him a fair shot. So I was really like crestfallen by the end of this. Some decent wrestling on both ends. It's nice to see Dusty or Dustin. Yes. They're both Dusty in my head.
01:52:08
Speaker
and they look very similar.
01:52:11
Speaker
The fact that we're actually getting some real use of all the props and everything rather than just comic relief is nice. Dusty holds on to one of the wooden stakes for like, when are you going to use it? When are you going to use it? He like holds onto it and does like five or six moves before he ever breaks it across Jared's back, which I think created a good suspense. And then, you know, he did a really good job with making it look like it plunged into him. I enjoyed the match. I just wasn't happy with the outcome.
01:52:41
Speaker
For me, this was an okay brawl, but one that didn't really have much intensity. I'm not in the blood makes matches better camp normally, but it just felt weird that this one didn't have anyone bleeding. We were seeing so many shots with weapons off into the face that it started feeling like there should be more consequences than what we were seeing. There were a few fun spots. Duct taping the ref was somewhat nonsensical. How was Rhodes going to win? But it made me laugh all the same.
01:53:08
Speaker
Hennig coming out conversely to what you were saying Al, though I do fully take your point, it actually made the match more interesting to me because he added an element to stop it feeling too repetitive,
Wrestling Storytelling Techniques
01:53:20
Speaker
ironically enough to me. But I do get your point on he breaks up every pin and somehow Rhodes doesn't realize for quite a while that he should deal with Hennig and that it doesn't work.
01:53:32
Speaker
The ending was interesting but odd. There's no way that Rhodes didn't see Jarrett climbing the ladder. I think it would have worked better if the Bulldog had been at a different angle, maybe. It's just lacked much in the way of emotion. I think these guys could do a lot better. No, I could do that, for sure.
01:53:48
Speaker
On your point of the blood, I could see if they have kind of started interfering a lot. And you do the heels to grab the guy and hit him with the weapon bit. So say maybe the cowbell, for instance. Of course, face gets out of the way, and he gets hit. Maybe he's bleeding from that. Yeah. And that explains why he's down for a while. Oh, he's bleeding, he's knocked out. And then it's a surprise he's back. Fractry would work more.
01:54:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing. Jared gets punched multiple times in the face with a cowbell outside the ring. Nothing. There's no sign of anything important happening. Not just blood, but it's just, oh, he got punched a few times, and then he's just fighting again.
01:54:29
Speaker
Yeah, even Dustin's, to me, felt pretty fake-looking pan in mind, pretending to stab him. That didn't draw blood either. It was a little weird, too. You're pretending to stab him in the forehead. Totally didn't draw blood, and yeah, it didn't do it. Yeah. This was definitely not Magnum TA versus Tully Plancher. No. Tully is good, but he's bad. I mean, it's like one of the first Mortal Kombat's that came to a game system, and they're like, when you hit him, powder flies off of him. Right, yeah, the Super Nintendo version of it, yeah. Right.
01:54:58
Speaker
Oddly enough, even though Dustin lost, I kinda wanted, after he picked up the guitar again, I kinda wanted him to jump off the ladder again and hit him again. Yeah.
01:55:08
Speaker
Like, make it worth it. Mortal Kombat finishing thing didn't really come through in my mind, but now it kind of does. There's one wrestling game in like the GameCube Xbox era where they were adding women's wrestling because they were starting to be a thing again. Oh, right. Yeah. And so you could have women wrestling and they didn't think of the fact that you could put them in first blood matches.
01:55:32
Speaker
because they didn't code women to build bleed, no matter what happened in the match. But I get the logic why they did that, but you could put them in a match where literally no one could win. Yeah, you could put them in a first blood match, but they can't bleed. No matter what happens. So, yeah, the match cannot end. Dustin Rhodes would segue from this feud to feeding with Terry Funk in January and February. Jeff Tierra, he stays busy, but I can't really talk about that yet.
01:56:01
Speaker
Meanwhile, David Flair is in a storage closet or something with his gold crowbar and a teddy bear. He laughs and hits the bear with the crowbar. That was pointless. We go to a video package of the DDP David Flair feud that explains absolutely nothing.
01:56:19
Speaker
Maybe Diamond Dallas Page can do better, as we cut to Mean Jean interviewing him backstage. DDP's shiny shirt kind of looks like he cut up one of those silvery garbage bags and made a shirt out of it, actually. Not the best look.
01:56:35
Speaker
Gene says that Page's problems with David Flair are coming to a head and explains the crowbar stipulation. There's a crowbar on a pole that if you climb, you can use it as a weapon. Page says people keep telling him that Flair has problems. Flair does have problems. If you try to take out Page and stalk his wife, you bet you have problems. Page is going to have the crowbar in his hands. Bada bing, bada boom, bada bang.
01:57:02
Speaker
Paige seems to get a little muddled at the end of the promo, but it makes it a little clearer what they're fighting about. I would've preferred a longer Paige promo and no video package. I feel like he could've made everything clearer if he got more time. His charisma's still clear and he did the best he could, but these short promos are really annoying. It's just not enough time to do anything, so why bother? I'd just like to point out the future tense irony of DDP being mad that someone was talk his wife.
01:57:33
Speaker
He's got those crazy eyes looking over the glasses too, which is nice touch. Yes. Yeah. It's like he has a combination, not great look with the weird shirt and great look with the sunglasses. Yeah. I do have a question though. Is he aware of the video packages backstage? Like he, does he know that he's got a golden crowbar back there now or? I assume not. Cause yeah, this is that era when it gets very confusing. What's actually,
01:57:59
Speaker
quote-unquote, erred on television and what is just stuff that only we get to see. And I'm assuming that the David Flair crowbar stuff is stuff only we're supposed to have seen. I guess maybe you could excuse it that Paige was being prepped for cutting the interview at the time that was being erred or something. Because he needed a lot of time to prep for that 28 seconds. Yeah, you know. Well, I mean, he is the guy that writes full binders full of match notes for anything he does.
01:58:28
Speaker
I think it's like an ancient Greece where only like the audience can hear the chorus. And these video packages are just the way to do that. I mean, there are some plays that actually play with that. But yeah, yeah, I think it's just the narrative is never there for the actual players. So between the matches, Nitro Girl sort of peered out of the darkness and sang the events of the story. Would that make the show better? That actually would make the show better. I would like to see that. Is that a question? It's a clarification. Yeah. Yeah. OK.
01:59:01
Speaker
So our ninth match is Diamond Dallas Page versus David Flair in a crowbar on a pole match. Referee for this match is Charles Robinson. And as I mentioned for this match, a crowbar is hung from a pole by a rope. If someone climbs up and gets the crowbar, they can use it.
01:59:18
Speaker
David Flair's craziness apparently comes from the aftermath of a match that D.P. has with Rick Flair at Hall & Havoc, which is just to explain why he's wearing that Hall & Havoc shirt. That is, he hasn't stopped wearing it since that show. Like, apparently it's a thought. Probably smells horrible. Smells worse than what Vader's tights allegedly smelled like most of the time. So it's like a Joker persona. It's a little bit of that, for sure. A little more Mr. Zazz, I would say. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that more.
01:59:47
Speaker
David Flair went crazy, Rick Flair is out because of that and some other storyline stuff. So DDP ever the dumb babyface had been trying to help him, which as mentioned has led to stalking and attacks. They didn't work out. Is there like a particular reason why this is a crowbar on a pole match or? I think it's just David Flair using a crowbar to hit people before. Okay. All right. Half-life is very important. There you go. And cause it's Vince Russo.
02:00:14
Speaker
DDP's music blessedly sounds like actual music. The downside is that it's a ripoff of an existing song. We get a weird sign in the crowd. Hall Fears Hair Gel. Not an accusation I would have expected.
02:00:30
Speaker
Well, Paige is doing his corner pose. David sneaks up on him and hits him in the ribs with his gold crowbar. Paige rolls out of the ring, holding his ribs, and Robinson takes the gold crowbar. David argues with Robinson and poses like he's won as Paige rides in pain. Robinson brings ring announcer David Penzer over and tells him that Paige can't compete. Penzer starts to announce it, but Paige lunges up and grabs him so we get a great shocked yelp over the microphone. That was pretty funny.
02:00:58
Speaker
Paige drags himself in the ring and Robinson signals that the match can start after all. Flair abuses Paige ribs with knees, elbows, kicks, and stomps. Paige gets a roll-up for two, but Flair keeps working the ribs. And Paige is in so much pain he can't even slam David Flair, falling over with Flair on top for two. Paige counters a sunset flip by sitting down for two, but David rolls him over for two and hits a DDT for two and three quarters.
02:01:24
Speaker
Flair claims it was three and chokes Paige, but wastes time posing and Paige fights back. A David Flair clothesline earns a flip sell from Paige for two and a half. Flair catches a Paige kick, but Paige swings around into a Lariat and both are down. They get up at the count of eight, and David punches Paige in the crotch, body slams him, and puts on a slightly sloppy figure four. It gets a two count, but Paige turns it over. David completely forgets to sell the pressure being reversed and just breaks.
02:01:53
Speaker
David gets the crowbar from the pole and swings at Paige. Paige ducks, slips around, and hits the diamond cutter for the three count and the win. The crowd erupts for Paige's win. Paige picks up David and props him on the top turnbuckle and hits a diamond cutter from the top. Paige grabs the crowbar, but a woman runs out and shields David with her own body. The announcers reference her being someone who sent a tape to them and had a David Flair shrine in her room, so clearly a dangerous and highly disturbed individual.
02:02:24
Speaker
Paige won't hit her, so he drops the crowbar and leaves her laughing insanely with the unconscious David. He starts to use the diamond cutter arm Charles Robinson too, but decides not to and leaves. Thoughts on this one?
02:02:37
Speaker
DDP does his best. Yes. As you mentioned, DDP is very famous for super repairing and detailing every bit of a match out ahead of time. It's really not a time to think of that doesn't work out like they're one that goes off the rails. So very least you can get a dead even middle of the road match of anybody with that formula. Yeah.
02:02:59
Speaker
That's basically true with this. He definitely does try to make David Flair look strong. Obviously, he puts in the initial handicap of the Riff B, the weak point. So it sort of makes sense what he leads in. But afterwards, he does definitely give him a lot more offense than he would think. Yeah, the reversals are pretty strong. He sells it pretty well. But two weeks before this show, they have David Flair in the ring in promo about something or other, mostly with D.P. D.P. runs in the ring.
02:03:27
Speaker
David Flair has the crowbar, swings at him, misses, and takes a diamond cutter, and immediately is picked out of the ring. DDP downselling the idea of the match that we now have. So it's weird that the exact same finish as him, dismissing the idea of the match, and also the finish of this match. It's a little strange. Flair did learn to spot us in his timing is pretty good. It's just, it's not really believable is my issue. I mean, I feel like if Steven was reversed, he would sell the exact same way for me.
02:03:56
Speaker
which is not super complimentary. Yeah. Obviously, I would actually work at it, but he would definitely do that same little for anybody, which is good and bad. DDP wins the moment the cardboard actually enters the match officially, which is very weird given the situation of the match. Yeah, that is odd. It's decent basically because DDP wrote a really good match. It just not executed believably to me.
02:04:23
Speaker
There's a bit of crazy in this. I did like the, you know, you're not going to count me out. I don't know why he was standing right there to announce that he's not going to be able to continue and that they could just end the match, just, you know, by pointing and be done with it. But I think it did a decent narrative. Tal's credit, you know, it wasn't fully believable. It would have been better if he actually did take a couple other hits from the Golden Crow bar and then have that disappear.
02:04:48
Speaker
Maybe it's just one of those things like he's like, what's wrong with you? And like throws it out of the ring, you know, and then then he takes a cheap shot or something He could have been reeling a little bit more But it was predictable once he got his move off, you know, I was like, okay I actually kind of felt bad for him on the top rope. So we did the diamond cutter from there but
02:05:09
Speaker
Guess he's trying to knock the scent back into him by doing that at the time. I suppose. I'm glad they didn't go into more gratuitous, like, we're just going to beat each other up with crowbars at the end. Let's send out a crazed fan. So, you know, there's a lot of weird stuff in this show. Yes. Just a bit. Just a bit.
02:05:33
Speaker
Yeah, major credit to DDP here for doing his absolute best to make David Flair look good for most of this match. It's a bit of a tougher task than making the giant look good. David is not his father. Paige spends most of the match selling for David, and they've done a good job of setting it up to be all about David focusing on Paige's ribs. So it gives it a decent overall storyline, except for the part where David goes for the figure four after doing absolutely nothing to Paige's legs.
02:06:02
Speaker
The match was short, so while David's offense was limited, it didn't get too repetitive, and the diamond cutter was, as always, nice and smooth. Not good, but much better than I thought it was going to be.
02:06:13
Speaker
It's a reasonably respectable match, and I think we really can credit Paige with that pretty heavily. I believe it's our first blank object slash person on a pole. Oh, yes. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah. Oh, no. Nope. Nope. There was the Sombrero on a pole match with Manny Fernandez. Oh, that's true. Yep. Yep. I forgot that.
02:06:35
Speaker
Let's see if this is our first one. We're setting the bar probably too high for the rest of them, but we'll see. The Manny Fernandez one was fair too, so we've actually had two pretty good, or respectable at least, something on a pole matches so far. I imagine that's not going to last, but hey. Yeah.
02:06:53
Speaker
So I was curious about why the gold crowbar is a special weapon for him. And to appreciate the level of research I do for this. So I did look this up and gold is a denser metal than steel. So in theory, a golden crowbar would be more effective than a regular crowbar. Okay. And maybe it's like a, you know, that golden gun thing from the James Bond stuff that's super deadly.
02:07:22
Speaker
Bear in mind that in the time between this last show we did and this one, DEP is a two-time world champion. So if we fully skipped over because we missed these shows. So eventually going into the new year, he will eventually go back after the world title, which will be a blessing and a curse. Now, this left part's a little confusing, so bear with me. So the lady that comes in is Daphne. She becomes a valet for flair. He forms a tag team with another wrestler who is named Crowbar.
02:07:54
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So to be clear, David Flair and Crowbar are an official tag team. And it's not David Flair and Crowbar or anything he's talking to. It was an actual person. Probably didn't write to be Crowbar come to life with like a magic wish or something. Yeah, I was gonna say maybe it's actually the golden Crowbar that became sentient and formed into a human form.
02:08:15
Speaker
I mean, if we watch, I think it's sold out, whatever it has, then wrestle. And that is in the video. I will recant what I said here, but I'm pretty sure just a guy named Crowbar after all this, which is weird. I would be ready to declare that the greatest WCW angle of all time, if that actually was the story, just for the ballziness of trying that. His demented wish comes true, and yeah. Yeah. They spray painted guy gold for the first few shows. That would be awesome.
02:08:44
Speaker
John's looking at us with the expression of ultimate despair. You want to see that story. You want to see that play, don't you? Come on, be honest. I mean, I could see some guy showing up. He said, my name is Barry. And he's like, no, your name is Crowbar. And then it forces it into his nickname. Crowberry.
02:09:14
Speaker
The announcers say David impressed them in that last match, and Tony builds up the upcoming Sting vs. Luger match with Miss Elizabeth's contract with Lex Luger at stake.
02:09:24
Speaker
Actually, I do have to make a note on that. This is something important. Lex Luger, he returned the previous month. He officially said Lex Luger is dead. He's only the total package. I'm still gonna call him Lex Luger. He'll take a great offense at that. He'll punch me and go, whoa! But if you think back at it, they announce him as the total package. They do, they do. They don't want to say the words Lex Luger. That's true. So the official bringing him is the total package. Okay. He's a total Luger. Even though I wrote Luger on my notes too, so.
02:09:53
Speaker
Tony throws to yet another video package, as Heenan calls a beer vendor to get a couple cold ones. Something which I dearly felt like doing myself at this point. He's earned it, yeah. This one covers the Sting versus Luger feud. It gives us an actually pretty decent idea of what's going on, albeit still through a random collection of clips and sound bites without anything really tying it together. But I'm gonna let Al take care of covering the actual story.
02:10:18
Speaker
Match 10 then is the total package. Thank you. Still Lex Luger versus Sting with Miss Elizabeth. The referee for this match is Johnny Boone.
02:10:30
Speaker
The storyline is that the total package, ever since he came back, he sadly lost his generic diddle music in place of his very dramatic slow-mo unveiling of his body. Which I actually do like his entrance. I think it's the coolest entrance on this show. Yeah. It took decent replacement at least. So he's come back and Miss Elizabeth is back with him. Apparently the idea is that somehow he controls her contract.
02:10:54
Speaker
which is with WCW. I don't know how that makes any sense, but apparently that's how it works. Package deal. It's not covered in the total video package. So anyway, so yeah, that's the story is that he can try to force or do stuff like rustle and mud and stuff like that. That sucks. Sorry.
02:11:17
Speaker
The payoff for that, it also sucks, yes. So naturally she goes to Sting, the person she's betrayed, how many times? To help her. He agrees because he's Sting and he just helps everybody. Constantly to his own detriment. So this leads to the match stream Sting and Tull package. The idea is he's going to try and force her freedom but it's not like actually stipulated on the match. As far as I can tell, anyways. Everyone says that her contract with Luger is like null and void if he wins the match, so.
02:11:47
Speaker
Yeah, Luger's out first, sadly no longer having his oddly catchy entrance theme, but the new entrance is nice. Backstage, Sting walks with Elizabeth. He asks if she's got her bottle of mace, and she confirms that she does. He has her toss it and gives her a different bottle that he says is better, and they enter. It's cool that Elizabeth has a Sting-themed outfit now, too, but that Scorpion logo is... unfortunately placed. Yeah, a little bit. I don't think it's an accident, though. Yeah, probably.
02:12:18
Speaker
Sting is still in his crow look, but his trench coat now has a rainbow scorpion on the back, so a bit of a nod to the old, more colorful Sting there. He hands his bat to Elizabeth and gets in the ring. Luger attacks as Sting gets in. Sting escapes his coat, but Luger punches him down and stomps him in the corner, selling louder than Sting. Bless you, Luger.
02:12:41
Speaker
Luger throws Sting out and beats him up outside, and accidentally earns a 0.1 Cena himself by kicking the steps when he slams Sting into them. He taunts Elizabeth as he puts Sting back inside and continues beating him up. A few elbow drops get one for Luger. Sting no-sells a suplex, and Luger doesn't notice as he's taunting Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Sting pinball Luger back and forth with slaps and punches until Sting lightly hits a dropkick. Luger's a little bit too far back.
02:13:08
Speaker
They double clothesline each other down. Elizabeth climbs in the ring with the bottle of mace, but goes to ask Luger something. Luger nods to her. Elizabeth turns, but Sting saw it all, and he smiles and waves at her. Elizabeth sprays Sting with the mace, but it's just silly string. For once in his career, Sting actually foresaw someone turning on him,
02:13:35
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that spot did get me really good. Sting tells Elizabeth to leave, casually elbowing Luger down, earning epic Luger cells. As Luger tries to attack him, the announcers try to ruin everything by talking about swerves and using insider lingo. Elizabeth gets out of the ring and Sting decimates Luger, building to a top rope splash with a huge hang time for 2 and 3 fourths. More offense and Sting gives a stinger call for a great response.
02:14:05
Speaker
A couple Stinger splashes and Luger collapses. Sting goes for the Scorpion Deathlock, but Elizabeth grabs Sting's bat and gets in. Sting tells her to drop it and leave. And she does drop the bat, but as he goes to try the Deathlock again, she scoops it up and nails him hard. And it looked like she might have caught him in the jaw. It looked like it, yeah. Yeah. You hear the shot, too. It's very hard. Sting is out cold, but he wins by disqualification.
02:14:32
Speaker
Elizabeth retrieves the chair and puts it around Sting's arm. Luger hurls Boone out of the ring and stomps on the chair several times, then takes the bat and smacks Sting's arm several more times. Tony says that's likely injured the arm and puts Sting out for quite a while. The crowd boos Luger, as probably every referee on the show and WCW Security come out to get him to leave. Then the staff carries Sting out, holding him partially by the arm that Luger's been hitting. Wait for a dang stretcher!
02:15:03
Speaker
It's so weird. Yeah, it's like the crowd carries the dead hero away from like the battle. There's like six of them. It's not enough for like a flock of people. That'd make any sense. They're just holding him really poorly. Yeah. And just like supporting him entirely by that arm is like a horrible idea. If that was actually broken, how much extra damage would you do? Oh my gosh. Yeah, right.
02:15:29
Speaker
Weird pattern, by the way, that I noticed while looking up stuff for the show. Sting closes out 1998, 1999, and 2000, slight spoilers there, with injury angles. All three years in a row. This is the only one that actually happens at Starrcade. The injury angle happens before it in 1998 and 2000. Thoughts on this match?
02:15:52
Speaker
It's got a lot of good action. It's the whole package and thing. So obviously they've worked together probably more time than we've done episodes of the show. Just in the last 10 years probably they have. So that was they have good chemistry together. They know each other quite well. So it's not a surprise they'd have a good match. It'd really be a surprise that they didn't at this point, I would say they had to really do something dumb to do that.
02:16:15
Speaker
like you, I did like the obvious eventual hissing catches a sword for once. Yeah. I do have a question, though. Kimberly, the referee sees her spray him, though, right? I honestly have no idea where Boon was at that moment. There's not a ref bump or anything. No, right. Yeah. So it's not a DQ the first time she tries to attack, I guess.
02:16:36
Speaker
Maybe he sees the silly string come out and the fact that Sting actually predicted this thing is kind of like a divide by zero in his head. And he like shuts down for a few moments. Oh, okay. The other thing that I really didn't think about until the second time and really reinforced the recapping now is that okay, so he saw her portrayal coming.
02:16:58
Speaker
but then brought his, a real bat. Yes. Maybe he didn't know what that was going to happen during the whole thing. And he figured that Elizabeth was just going to be like, try to save face, you know, at the end of the day. He could have brought like a nerf bat. I've been hilarious. That would have been awesome. She just keeps hitting him and you know, he, he told a lock while, while, while Luger taps out. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe he was like 99% sure. The 1% was like, maybe she's not going to train me and I do need this bat just in case.
02:17:27
Speaker
I will say as good as the action is, the DQ finish hurts. It's part of a bigger story, but it's weird that Starrcade is the beginning of a bigger story and not the climax of a bigger story. I don't know.
02:17:41
Speaker
Great wrestling. I enjoyed the total PKG and Sting. I wasn't fully sold on the premise from the get-go, but I could see that Sting's trying to be helpful and get someone out of a bad situation. So that kind of carried me. I'm glad that they both got some great spots.
02:18:04
Speaker
The silly string was kind of funny. No, the silly sting or whatever you want to call it. I didn't think of that. Nice. I mean, I paused it right then. I just happened to, you know, like I had to go do something else and I came back and I was like, that's a great screenshot. You know, just having sitting there with like the string just hanging off of them. It's a good exchange and good acting on both ends. I think that they sell it real well. It's overblown and obvious, but I think you need to.
02:18:31
Speaker
for the audience so they can see that, you know, he's a little tongue in cheek. And the fact that I thought I was laughing and giggling when he was talking to her and package gets up and he does the elbows. I loved that. Yeah. I thought that was, that was great. It was like, oh, hi, I've got you. And it stinks just like night out.
02:18:49
Speaker
Great timing. It was enjoyable. It also reminded me of the Batman the Image series opening. He didn't backfist the one guy, doesn't even look. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If he was hurt by the bat, you know, it was sold really well. If he wasn't actually struck, same credit goes to when they're working the hand, even though they probably placed it in a way that it would prevent some injury. Still, he didn't budge or move or, you know, show any indication that he was conscious.
02:19:17
Speaker
He sells being conscious. Yeah. Sting acts like he is completely out. It's got to be hard to not even twitch when someone is at least in part landing on your arm. Yeah. Even the bat shots. There's got to be like at least a touch that he's feeling constantly. He has no reaction. Yeah. Pillmanization usually gets a rise out of you. Yeah.
02:19:44
Speaker
It was an interesting match. I don't really have anything negative to say about it. I don't know why they don't, they aren't kind of distinct sometimes. Yeah. That's all. That's a broader WSB question for sure. Yeah. I think that it was, it was a good outcome for the narrative, but you know, I would have liked to seen Steen get a little more love. Yeah. And this could easily have been, if they didn't have the whole Miss Elizabeth thing, it could have been the main event. Yeah. If they had expanded it.
02:20:14
Speaker
Yeah, thank goodness for Luger and Sting. Even a pretty basic Sting versus Luger match is still better than everything else on the card so far. You're right. They use a simple match structure here. Luger beats Sting down, Sting recovers, Sting kicks Luger's butt. These guys do have more than this, but as simple as it is, the match works.
02:20:37
Speaker
The spot was Sting finally, for once in his life, realizing ahead of time that someone's going to turn on him was awesome and had me in stitches. It is hurt a little by the finish, as it doesn't make much sense, like you said. Why Sting thinks that Elizabeth won't just pick the back up and smack him, or why he brings it in the first place if he knows that he's got a traitor on his team.
02:20:58
Speaker
I guess they had to get to the injury angle, but it does feel like they could have found another way to do that even with Sting winning. There are crowbars everywhere. Oh, that would have actually been great. Sting doesn't bring the bat, but Elizabeth finds the gold crowbar that Robinson discarded. Did you find the treasure map and start looking around for it?
02:21:20
Speaker
The origin of the bat, obviously, is Crosting becoming that as part of the N.W.O. So the idea is that he has to constantly run and fight off like four to ten, or in HPK math, four to a thousand, two thousand people. So the bat makes for extent why it's not just punting them.
02:21:39
Speaker
Now, obviously at this point, the batches have become iconic for him, but he's going to a one-on-one match with somebody, and not even counting the, you know, she might betray you thing. It's weird that you need the bat for a one-on-one match. It's still the only thing. Expecting someone else to attack him, maybe, I don't know.
02:21:54
Speaker
It does occur to me a possible explanation for the bat. Okay. For him still bringing that out there. And that's that Luger has been talking a lot in the video package, as were shown, with the powers that be, who have a lot of henchmen. So he may be thinking, okay, even if I've countered Elizabeth's plan, Luger may have worked up something with the powers that be to send, you know, creative control down or something to kick my butt. So he brings the bat to deal with
02:22:21
Speaker
possible additional interference. So what you're saying is this match could have led to a La Parker run-in. Yes. And it didn't. Yes. Did that turn you on the entire match? A little bit, yeah. I'm sorry. You've ruined it all. I just think it's part of the costume. I think so too, yeah. It would have been great if it was a nerf bat somehow. Yes. Like you could tell from like picking it up, but. Yeah. That would have made this match of the series.
02:22:50
Speaker
Like it just broke and he laughed. Yeah. Just like Lucre's tapping. Yeah. He just keeps hitting him and just like, nope. Nope. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Still, it was good to see a Sting versus Luger match again and they put together a very fun story. Yeah. I'll copy that. This definitely woke me up a little after the rest of the show. The DDP versus player match did some good too, but I was like,
02:23:18
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I can honestly solidly declare I liked something. For sure, yeah. Yes.
02:23:26
Speaker
Obviously, as this entails, Sting takes time off. Obviously, it leads to a rematch down the road against Luger. And Luger's storyline basically comes. He decided he likes the arm-breaking thing so much. He does it to a bunch of people, which is all part of the Sting match, which leads to, like, a Lumberjack match. Lumberjack's an arm in, like, cast. Correct. Yeah. But yeah, that's where that's going, essentially.
02:23:51
Speaker
We cut to a video package for the Powerbomb match between Nash and Sid Vicious, featuring Nash wearing a Sid mask to make fun of him and Sid getting angry and challenging him to find out which of them is better at the Powerbomb. It also features the first half of an immortal Sid line from the November 15th Nitro.
02:24:22
Speaker
He would have been fine if he just stopped there.
02:24:37
Speaker
Cut to Nash and Hall, at least managing to laugh heelishly. Yes. Oh my gosh. Oh, that line so much. That is one of the best wrestling promo bloopers of all time. He's so intense about it, but I love it. Yeah. Oh. Was he supposed to say twice? I'm guessing what he's supposed to say is something more like, and I've got half of mine to beat you up.
02:25:07
Speaker
or something like that. I could see twice the brains that you do, maybe, but yeah. But you are half as much. Yeah. Yeah. But he just gets it all muddled and says, I've got half the brain that you do rendering this an immortal moment. It's beautiful.
02:25:24
Speaker
And obviously they only put the you're half the band that I am part in the promo package because why embarrass the poor guy further, but Wow, he's just so so intense about that line He doesn't seem to realize in the moment that he's no wrong either. This is great so match 11 is the Millennium Man Sid Vicious versus Kevin Nash in a master of the powerbomb match the referee for this match is Mark Johnson and
02:25:54
Speaker
So the bigger than life egos of Sid and Nash collide. Ironically, behind the scenes, it was Kevin Nash who got Sid Vicious to return to WCW. I think from playing softball, because that's usually where he goes. Yeah, generally. I love the rest of the ECW briefly as well. He comes back, he's the Millennium Man, which I believe was also a movie with Robin Williams, isn't it? He's a robot. Bicentennial Man. Oh, so close. Every 200 years.
02:26:22
Speaker
He comes back and he'll heal at this point. He'll win matches, but then he'll also attack people after the match and powerbomb them. And somehow this becomes his streak. He has his own Goldberg streak, counting the after the match attacks as wins for his streak.
Powerbomb Match Debacle
02:26:40
Speaker
The number has changed all the time. Rebounding from the loss of said streak, in air quotes, of course. He has to go after Kevin Nash.
02:26:51
Speaker
So their predilection for power bombs leads to the stipulation of the match. To win this match, you have to power bomb the other wrestler. That's the only way to win this match. Clear on that? Yeah, yeah. Okay. No pinfalls, no submissions, no disqualifications, no countouts. You can only win by doing a power bomb to your opponent.
02:27:14
Speaker
If this match I made a return and you're fighting Billy Kidman, do you just lose via forfeit? Yes. Okay. Just checking. Vicious enters first followed by Nash. NWO Wolfpack theme count one. Now I guess it's just Nash's theme since the Wolfpack is no more. You still hate it though. Yes. Nash holds the title, but it's not on the line. The ref shows Vicious anyway, I guess thinking that Vicious likes shiny objects or something. Pretty.
02:27:42
Speaker
Nash controls, missing a punch by a mile, and getting Vicious in the corner for knee strikes, oddly swinging his leg back and forth several times before one of them. Hudson tells us this is one of three main events tonight. Vicious completely fails to sell Nash's strikes and mistakes a clothesline spot for a simultaneous clothesline spot, but Nash takes him down anyway, then goes for a pin, as the ref counts too. Uh, guys? Powerbomb match?
02:28:09
Speaker
Maybe he thought that was closer to Powerbomb that it should count halfway? No. So you can get up in. Vicious fights back and goes for his Millennium Bomb, but Nash punches him in the crotch. Vicious can sell that at least as he rolls out. Somehow he's gotten a cut on his back, I couldn't tell when. He and Nash brawl outside and Nash tries the Jackknife Powerbomb, but Vicious awkwardly pushes him away and mostly misses a kick that Nash generously sells.
02:28:36
Speaker
Vicious works the back with the apron, barricade, and chair, so there actually is a story to this at least. Back in, Vicious hits a closed line and an honestly terrific leg drop. Vicious tries to get the crowd to chant, power bomb, power bomb. They do not.
02:28:55
Speaker
Now, if they enchanted enough, would he have won the match? Yes. Okay. Nash uses an Eyepoke, but Vicious reverses a whip and sends Nash right into Johnson, who gets knocked loopy and falls to his knees trying to act dazed. Vicious tries the Millennium Bomb and can barely lift Nash for it, dangling him precariously headfirst over the mat before managing to heft him just enough to finish the move. It's about as terrifying as the Medusa Courageous spot earlier.
02:29:21
Speaker
Johnson is determinedly dazedly facing the wrong way, so he doesn't see. Vicious tries to get him to turn, and Johnson clearly consciously fights it. Just act like you passed out entirely and none of this would be a problem. Jeff Jarrett runs in, clocks Vicious with his guitar, and hustles about cleaning up debris before waking Nash. Nash, very slowly, tries twice to power Bomb Vicious, but is back his owie so he can't. So he goes over to Johnson.
02:29:52
Speaker
Can't believe I'm about to say this. You are. Go for it. And tells him that he powerbombed Vicious. He pantomimes it too, though. Yeah, he pantomimes the powerbomb. And it works! Johnson raises Nash's hand in victory. And the Beulwolf Pack theme count too. Tony and Hudson are aghast and won't declare Nash master of the powerbomb, so Heenan does. Sid just leaves. Thoughts on this one.
02:30:22
Speaker
For what it's worth, I absolutely won't deny that Sid has issues selling, cause I mean, Sid, he's not, he's not Blanco, and he starts a meditation.
02:30:33
Speaker
I do like that there is actual psychology and a story to the match, which going into this match, dear, I knew the ridiculous finishes is famously bad, but I'd never actually seen the match. I was surprised how much flow there was up until it abruptly just stops for all the navel gazing with the referee and everything. Honestly, if they had done something less stupid, like having actually to do a powerbomb, you could have him be assisted by Derek to a powerbomb.
02:31:03
Speaker
First off, there's no DQ as far as I know. Right, yeah. So Jared didn't even need to clean up the debris. Well, he cleans up the debris, I think, so that the ref will buy that Nash did a power bomb and not think it was a guitar shot. I don't know, he's ahead of that plan. I think, I feel like the stupid tell the ref thing is
02:31:20
Speaker
Is planned c or d or e or f or whatever wherever he's at. Yeah true I don't think from the get-go his plan is okay. I'm not gonna do a powerbomb. I'm gonna lie there That's a good point. Yeah, because he tries to do a powerbomb a couple times after yeah a good point Yeah, never mind. I try I dreamed up a way that it made sense. Sorry. He could have like jumped on the mat So it sounded like he did it. Yeah
02:31:43
Speaker
Or propped him up and held him like at the end of the pose. Yeah. Yeah. He could try the first one not working. Jeff Jarrett does that back half of the lift to get him over in the powerbomb while the ref's up. Or do the corner powerbomb. Right? Like out of the turnbuckle one. Yeah. Now, if you knock him out, you'd have to set that up more, though. Yeah, I just mean like he could have Jarrett help him lift him up. No, sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's so stupid. It's really, really dumb.
02:32:14
Speaker
Yeah, I wrote, doobie the long ref bump plus stupid if creative finish is a one-two punch of bad. Yes. I could think of a dozen ways less stupid then lie to the ref and the ref never bothers to take the tape because the rest for replay.
02:32:31
Speaker
Well, and believes, I mean, this is the thing that gets me the most about this, is the rule in wrestling basically is if the ref doesn't see it, it didn't happen. That's how it always works. That's what enables heels to function. They can smack a guy with a chair or brass knucks or what have you behind the ref's back.
02:32:52
Speaker
The ref doesn't see it happen. It doesn't matter how loud the chair shot was and how he heard the sound of metal colliding with flesh. It did not happen. They don't hear that. But this is the one case where someone's like, yes, referee, this occurred.
02:33:09
Speaker
And the ref believes him. And in this case, it didn't happen. So like, what? Yeah. I will say there's one exemption which doesn't make this not stupid. But the one exemption that we're talking about, the ref must see it to happen is...
02:33:24
Speaker
Heels tagging their own hand. Faking the tag. Fair enough. Okay. So because Nash is a heel, the referees, I believe, heels on fake tags sense triggers, and that's why this works. Okay. The referee's injured. He doesn't want to get injured again. He's out of it. So he's like, I'm done with this match. It's just so, so stupid. Is it original, though? It is original, yes. I will give you that.
02:33:51
Speaker
I can't think of another match that has that finish. No one else was stupid enough to do this. Yeah. So you're saying this like has merit. No. Like, okay. Oh my gosh. I don't even know if I need to comment on this.
02:34:07
Speaker
you totally do you always expect someone to do a specific move to finish like you can't have diamond dallas page and i'm like a stunner yeah i mean his his claim to fame is he can do the diamond cutter from any angle or whatever you know and make it unique
02:34:24
Speaker
interesting things happened in this match, but the one thing that should have been interesting is who got the first powerbomb. And like you said, it seems a little disjointed in that they're trying to pin each other. It's with us, Abaya.
02:34:41
Speaker
I think that they might've just missed a spot or something, and that's how they recover from it. They go on autopilot at a certain point, and you're just like, oh, I knocked him down, I'll go for a pin. What's weird to me is the ref also goes on autopilot. Yeah, the ref would be like, what are you doing? No, it'd been funny if he actually finished that, and he's like, no. They're like, no, you need to do it. Oh, crap, what? Yeah.
02:35:04
Speaker
Like if you pin them, do you get like a free power bomb? There you go. You have to stand there and let me do it. Let's not make this more complicated. It's like a penalty kick, right? Yeah. Penalty bomb. Soccer can be so much more exciting. I am more interested in making this soft drink or this energy drink than I am. This thing. It could have been pretty amazing and it just wasn't. And it might be one of the better endings of the night.
02:35:35
Speaker
Not one of the better ones, but certainly better than some. Okay. Not to keep Facebooking this, but you could easily, that's something where Nash on the outside sits on the apron yelling at Jeff Deere to rein in there and Kevin Nash grabs him off the apron and power bombs him. Yeah. There's loads of ways you could work out Nash being able to do a power bomb despite his back being out weak. They did not have to actually do this. Yeah. Yeah.
02:36:01
Speaker
Slow and awful. Sid is utterly incapable of selling and has no offense beyond clubbing and kind of odd kicks. Nash can't drag an interesting fight out of Sid and should be glad that he lived through the match after a second terrifying powerbomb tonight. And the ending, oh man.
02:36:20
Speaker
It's so ridiculously stupid it almost turns around and becomes awesome. Almost. The terrible acting by ref Mark Johnson, Jarek cleaning the ring after his guitar shop for like the only time in his career, and Nash just telling the referee that he won. One of the worst match ending ideas ever. They should have made this Nash's gimmick. Convincing refs that he won in all kinds of matches. Oh yeah, he totally submitted when you looked away.
02:36:47
Speaker
What, don't you remember? You counted three on a pinfall a second ago. Come on, I threw all those guys out while your back was turned. Who you gonna believe, me or them? Oh, but seriously, what a terrible match and terrible ending. In that ending, there is like two people in the crowd that are like... Doing the wolf pack side. Yeah, they're doing the wolf pack side. Everyone else is looking away, looking down. Boo! Yeah. Boo!
02:37:16
Speaker
No one is happy with the editing. The only credit I will give is after the match, Nash continues trying to convince the crowd. Yeah, you saw me do a power bomb, right? Yeah. I feel weird being in a place where I'm not saying that Sid is really great in this match, but I feel weird to the point where I'm actually less bothered by the match that Bob is about this, but okay, it happens. There's just a lot of little things about this match that
02:37:43
Speaker
Already go kind of wrong and then you throw the horrible ending on top of it and it's just like what? But I do give him credit for the really good leg drop Absolutely. That was good. So let it not be said that I have not compliment. It's ambitious Spry then they come out of losing this apparently super important match See gets put in position to town for the world title on January. Okay, but complications arise in that
02:38:15
Speaker
Someone in the crowd has the nerve to hold up a WWF sucks sign after that match. Timing, dude! We cut backstage. Chris Benoit is with Mike Tenet. Tenet lays out Benoit's open challenge. Benoit says he doesn't know who his opponent's gonna be, but whoever it is will go through the Crippler and find out what Silent But Violent is all about.
02:38:41
Speaker
If Vemois doesn't have new information to give, why are we talking to him again? Also, can I just note that silent but violent is a really weird catchphrase? I mean, first, you're verbally describing yourself as silent, which is kind of strange. Well, during the match. And second, do you really want your catchphrase to remind people of how they describe a particularly nasty fart? I mean, he would there go with toothless aggression, so take your pick. Yeah, yeah. Neither's really good, is it?
02:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, the shirt I have, getting it on a Crispin Moss shirt, I just never wear it in public for obvious reasons. Yes. Is like something like Snap or Tap or something like that about just missionals. Yeah. They were quite great with giving him. No. I honestly don't hate the silent but violent thing as much. It feels like a catchphrase, just not 100% thought out. I think he just tries new ones all the time and sees what sticks. Yeah, none of them really do.
02:39:38
Speaker
Although I do have to note, silent but violent, he was using back in like 96 as well. It was not particularly good then either. He never quite sounds like he buys it either, I think is the thing. He always says it and seems to feel a little awkward about it. Well, because talking is not natural for him, obviously. Yeah, because he's silent. Yeah. Okay, I get you.
02:39:58
Speaker
Our 12th match is Chris Benoit versus whoever the heck comes out. In a latter match for Benoit's, or I guess for the vacant, United States heavyweight title, referee for this match is Mickey J. Come on, Brian Knops.
02:40:13
Speaker
The build to this is that Scott Hall won the U.S. title on NYTRO in a ladder match. He surprisingly stacked a ladder match too. I feel the exact same. It's him and Goldberg and Bret Hart and somebody else. You think they'd be like a really famous match. It's just not interesting, unfortunately. But yeah, it ends on NYTRO not in pay-per-view. It probably didn't help.
02:40:33
Speaker
But yeah, so they're setting up the story that he's calling himself the mastered ladder match, going out for WrestleMania 10 and SummerSlam, you know, and the other company. Yes. To their credit, they're really famous, so. Right, right. Also, I think the previous ladder match he had before this, he lost. The Goldberg one, he has fallen into the dark and I'm pretty sure he loses. So it's an iffy thing, but he's also a heel.
02:40:57
Speaker
As we noted, he was such a defendant, but is injured. We'll look if he's what it said his injury is, but it's enough that they don't book him on this show. So this is a master of the ladder match, ladder match, which of course means that you have to smack someone with a ladder to win. Yes. No, no. Just kidding.
02:41:16
Speaker
Benoit's pyro seems oddly timed, going off well before he actually comes out on stage. There's a ladder in the entrance ramp, so Benoit has to kind of awkwardly walk around it. The US title is suspended above the ring. This is really our first ladder match, isn't it? Yeah. That's... wow.
02:41:34
Speaker
Jared's music hits, revealing that despite having a match earlier in the night, Jeff Jarrett will be Benoit's opponent. He comes out in wrestling gear this time. Jarrett grabs a microphone and climbs up on the ladder, and asks for his music to be cut. I couldn't place which announcer it is, as it's quiet, but one of them hardly agrees. Jared calls Benoit, slap nuts.
02:41:59
Speaker
He says that he's already kicked one butt tonight, so he might as well make it two. When he's done, the Crippler will be crippled. It's just Jared accepting the match. Let's move on and never speak of his favorite word again. As long as he doesn't wear a shirt with it all the time. Yes. Jared and Benoit brawl by the ladder, and Jared flees into the ring. Inside, Jared tries to use agility to keep ahead of Benoit, but Benoit lands a clothesline, backbreaker, and chops, and finally lifts Jared up top for a superplex. This early? Wow.
02:42:29
Speaker
Jarret is out, and Benoit retrieves the ladder, but Jarret wakes up and knocks Benoit off the apron and baseball slides into the ladder to send it into Benoit hard. Then, with the ladder dangling over the apron, he drops Benoit onto it. Ow! Everyone in the ladder back in, and Jarret tries to send Benoit into the ladder in the corner, but Benoit reverses and Jarret eats ladder. Benoit is bleeding.
02:42:54
Speaker
Benoit climbs, but Jarrett drops him off the ladder, crotch first onto the top rope, then drops the ladder on Benoit. They trade off smacking each other into the ladder, and Jarrett props it in the corner and tries to crotch Benoit through the rungs. Benoit's foot is in the way, and Tony covers saying that he managed to defend himself. But Jarrett tangles Benoit's legs around the ladder anyway, then grabs the ladder and pushes off the ropes, dumping Benoit over with the ladder landing on top. Amazing spot there.
02:43:20
Speaker
Is that a Russian ladder sweep? I guess, yeah, that's probably what you should call it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
02:43:50
Speaker
The ladder lands on Jarrett. They both prop up the ladder and use it to help them stand and climb. Jarrett wins a brawl on top and Benoit falls, but they trade off climbing and dumping each other off onto the ropes. Benoit climbs, but Jarrett hits a top rope drop kick to the ladder and it goes right out from under Benoit, sending him to the mat hard. That was amazing.
02:44:12
Speaker
Jarrett tries to keep Benoit down, but Benoit rolls under a clothesline, and the ladder, and Drop kicks it into Jarrett, then climbs to stand up top. He could easily take the belt down, but instead he does the swan dive headbutt from the top of the ladder onto Jarrett. Air Canada, they're calling that. Jarrett is out cold, and Benoit climbs the ladder again to take the belt down for the win. The crowd cheers Benoit's victory as Hudson calls it a match of the year candidate.
02:44:42
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? I thought it was a really strong match. I mean, I'm not the biggest Jeff Jarrett fan, but obviously these two had a match previously, which despite the Chicanery, I guess you could say, the weird double knockout thing they did, the match itself was actually really good. I guess it shouldn't be surprised that they have chemistry together.
02:45:02
Speaker
I liked that the latter spots were pretty creative. At the same time, they weren't really complicated, as much sense as that makes. In a more modern match, especially as they became yearly or twice yearly at the events, they kept on escalating what you could do and turn into stacking four of them in some weird pattern and falling in sequence. It looks cool, but it takes so long. Kfabe kind of doesn't really hold up.
02:45:26
Speaker
Yeah, there's like no setup time in this one. It's constantly moving. Right. By point is they don't make the bot so complicated that you question the reality. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All of them make sense, which is nice. For the most part, all the moves are pretty hard hitting, but you can tell they're so professional about this that they do them as safely as possible. It's like, you know, the bit where he's dropped in ladders of hanging off the ring apron, which I really wish he could do in the games, by the way. Yes. He thinks it's not allowed that to happen, unfortunately.
02:45:57
Speaker
There's a lot of ways that could be a lot worse. He takes it as flat, as surface as he can when he takes that bump. I can see you falling too far forward into your head. There's a lot of ways you can mess it up and rolling off could be bad as well. So they do these spots that look really impactful and I'm sure did not feel good.
02:46:14
Speaker
But they don't in a way that, for the most part, they avoid any real serious issues that could be happening. I appreciate that as well. They aren't just trying to make a crazy spot and hope they all survive. They know themselves first. They're doing dumping each other off of ladders as safely as you could possibly do dumping each other off of ladders.
02:46:34
Speaker
Oh yeah, that was really good, especially coming off the fact that it seems like the day of they decided Scott Hall was too injured to compete. And they made this all up. I don't know, part of me preferred someone else got the spotlight, given that Jeff here already got to be in a match and win the one match form. I wouldn't take him with this match, I don't think, but I also don't know who you would have put in against Dustin. Smiley. Smiley, yeah.
02:47:01
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder if it's just that if they had really had such short notice, maybe they're just like, okay, Jerry has really good chemistry with Benoit, they can do something this fast. It may be a necessity thing. Mm-hmm. A lot of matches, they've come out of Canada. So I'm curious if Benoit had done any number of them beforehand, maybe that's another reason why they felt safe putting in with, originally, Scott Hall, who obviously done a few of them.
02:47:26
Speaker
But I don't know if he's done these before. I feel like he must have. Yeah, I'm almost certain he's got to have done that. Pressing Calgary like that, yeah. Yeah. It was a really amazing match. I usually am not a fan of a lot of matches. I've seen a few others. They're usually really boring. This was anything but. Like Al said, you have to stack multiple things like Domino's to do it. And it builds some anticipation, but the whole setup thing is kind of...
02:47:52
Speaker
overwrought and loses some effect. Quick transitions, I like that they had a lot of back and forth in this. I still can see Jarrett kicking the ladder out from beneath in the law pretty vividly. He did a nice jump and the camera angle was perfect on that. It looked like he had a lot more air time than he actually did. You can't tell from it, but he probably jumped quite a bit.
02:48:16
Speaker
as high as you could. Jared is actually very good at drop kicks I've found over his career of any kind, so he's a good guy to do this. Yeah, and that was a nice thing. I, as much as one can enjoy things, I like that they do the thing where they both climb up the lot at the same time and they just basically just duel each other. I don't know if it was sponsored by Werner or they didn't have enough product placement and everything, but I would like to know what can handle that kind of
02:48:43
Speaker
abuse yeah durable ladder because a lot of the ones on later shows will be like they take like three hits and they're bent every which way they they got a quality ladder for this one yeah I know that seems a little odd but it was very impactful and the fact that there is this is the first one you see any blood and we've already seen brass knuckles and cowbells and everything else
02:49:05
Speaker
And I suspect with Benoit, that was an accident in this one. I think he does like take the ladder hard. My guess is when Jared kicks the ladder at him, that's probably when it hits. I mean, we did have the back cut earlier. You know, there's some accidents here and there, but I think it actually added to the match.
02:49:21
Speaker
I think the narrative in the very beginning of the show had me anticipating some of this and not knowing who it was. I think even if it wasn't Jared and they didn't do as good of a performance, it already set the expectation that I would enjoy it. So, great setup, great outcome. I liked that they did a little
02:49:43
Speaker
Surface to the fans and just instead of just outright winning. He's like The Canadian Airlines or whatever they call. What was it Air Canada Air Canada It was it was a decent match it was a great match actually and Probably one of the better matter a lot of matches I've seen Yeah head and shoulders above every other match on the show so far and not just because they were standing on that on the ladder and
02:50:12
Speaker
I got it. They put together a fun, creative, stunt-filled match here. I like that even though they kept moving quickly, they'd get wobbly around their feet as the match went on and use the ladder to help them stand up, acknowledging the damage being done without letting it slow the match down. I didn't see any cracks in the match story. It felt like this was always supposed to be Benoit vs. Jarrett. Impressive work there.
02:50:38
Speaker
The ending, okay, obviously it's uncomfortable seeing Benoit do headbutts off the top of the ladder because spots like that contribute to how his story ends. But in a broader sense, I never quite got when wrestlers are on top and decide to jump off instead of grabbing the belt. It's just like, just take the belt down first, then do your diving move still if you want to, right? I mean, win the match first. So usually that is done, not to excuse it, but it's usually done when you want to do a spot, but then also not booked to win it.
02:51:08
Speaker
That's almost always how it goes. But Benoit is winning the match. He could easily grab the belt and hold it in his hands while he does the swan dive headbutt, which one would make more sense and two would look awesome. No, absolutely. You don't have to climb it once. Yeah, that as well. Other than that, terrific match. Absolutely terrific match.
02:51:29
Speaker
This feels like a fight. It feels like them trying everything they can to take each other down, but keeping things moving constantly, doing really cool moves, but nothing that looks unrealistic. It all makes sense and comes together really well. Excellent match.
02:51:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting to look back at this match, too, because the latter matches started at one-on-one affairs, whether in Calgary or Mid-South and other territories did it as well. But they quickly turned into multi-man matches. Mostly, like, combined in 2000, 2001, the Hardy Boys, the Decristian, Puffy Boys, all that stuff.
02:52:07
Speaker
It turned from being singles matches to being big group chaotic fights and stunt shows. So when they actually started doing single live matches again, people were like, wait, you can do single ones?
02:52:22
Speaker
Because they're so used to the breakneck pace of the multi-man ladder matches, you could do, you trade people out. You do bigger spots, and then they stay down longer when more people are fighting. Right. So when people like, I've seen an edge in 2006, I believe is the year on that. People were like, wait, how's that gonna work? There's only two of you, who's gonna trade out after a big move, but...
02:52:40
Speaker
Obviously, that matches really good, too. So it's important to remember these matches. I know, obviously, people think of WrestleMania X and, to a lesser extent, the SummerSlam match, because that one's more bocce. But I think people overlook these kind of matches overall because of TLC and TLC2. And in mind, the Bank, obviously, being an annual thing, we're taking that. The singles ones, I think I actually prefer strongly because
02:53:03
Speaker
You just, you get less of that downtime. Yeah. Because they're not trying to set up all these absolutely insane stunts. They're just trying to have a match. Yeah. And the two guys seem to be better about constantly having a story than like, you know, a hundred guys. I think you can do multi man live match and making good, but it's, it's trickier. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
02:53:26
Speaker
Jeff Darrick still attacks the little powers of B angle. So what happens is, the very next Night Nitro, he's given a rematch against Benwah for the title, which is also a ladder match. So, I'm glad you paid to watch this ladder match yesterday. We'll do it again. That's weird. Come on! I know. And they wonder why people's numbers are down when they just repeat matches. Now here's the wrinkle. They have a reason, I guess, for doing it again, but it's still stupid.
02:53:55
Speaker
It's a shorter match as well. So they're fighting a nitro. Ultimately, Benoit gets Jared down. They make sure to build up to kind of climb the ladder instead of actually doing it. So it's all about nine people in the ladder fighting. So Benoit's got Jared down. She'll have to climb the ladder and the rungs break off.
02:54:13
Speaker
So the idea is that they put a fake ladder out when designed to break. Both sides also do this. So I was distracted. He gets hit with a guitar shot. Dear brings out a different ladder, which is actually a real one. And then wins you a title. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, wow. This match will be a race to the next day. Then you wait till January. Well, at least it was good. Well, it lasted.
02:54:42
Speaker
Uh, speaking of January... Holy crap. Oh, seriously? Holy crap. That's so dumb.
02:54:48
Speaker
I mean, I actually kind of like the idea of the fake ladder. Yeah, that's that's kind of fun. But the next day, yeah, you don't let him have like do it on the next pay-per-view. I know. I'm not disagreeing. Oh, my gosh. So speaking of the January show, which we'll talk a lot about without talking too much into it, because we're going to cover it at some point in the future. Between then and now, a rematch is obviously set between Benoit and Jared. It's supposed to be a bunch of matches, actually, triple threat theater, they call it, like a cage and stuff like that.
02:55:18
Speaker
Unfortunately, Jeff Gert is injured, but will become a very far to the common theme of this time, a concussion. So he vacates the title before the January show. So we got a title team next night and also the January vacation. Wow. People wonder why the Vicar titles didn't get the prestige they used to have. Yeah.
02:55:55
Speaker
We cut to another video package, this one covering Bret Hart winning the vacant world title in a tournament by beating of all people Chris Benoit.
02:56:04
Speaker
And the build to our heart versus Goldberg world title match tonight. There's a very nice subtle bit in the midst of this as hard as giving his best there is best there was and best there ever will be line in the promo in the video package. He indicates Goldberg when he says the best there was. Yes, I know that too. Very, very nice subtle hinting there.
02:56:27
Speaker
The video gave a better sense of the narrative than any of the others tonight, I think. For sure, yeah. It's just a more straightforward story overall, I think, too, which helps. We go backstage to Mike Tenet, who's with Bret Hart. Tenet says this is the moment they've been waiting for. Hart says he's a man of his word and he said that Goldberg is going to lose. He wants to prove that he's the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, whether Goldberg likes it or not.
02:56:55
Speaker
Another short promo here. It's fine, but like most of the others, it added nothing in particular. If you're going to have promos, have promos, not soundbites. Package is good. You definitely don't need the soundbite afterwards. I would just go right to it. Let's do it.
02:57:12
Speaker
So our final match, the 13th match on this show. The lucky one. Lucky number 13. Lucky number 13, yeah. Is Goldberg versus Bret Hit Van Hart in a no disqualification match for Hart's WCW World Heavyweight title. The referee is Billy Silverman.
02:57:34
Speaker
going into the world title tournament, which obviously Bret Hart wins as part of the story, the first round match, he actually ended up fighting Goldberg. Oh, interesting. But they add a little extra wrinkle, which is kind of confusing. So it's a tournament to determine the new world champion. Goldberg is US champion at the time. They decide the US title will be in the line during this world title tournament match. Okay.
02:57:59
Speaker
So he loses the US title to Bret Hart as part of the build to this as well. Okay. And Bret loses it, but they'll cover that. It's weird, I don't know why it's that's just a random thing sucking there. Okay. Then make sure he loses the title while also losing his world title shot in the process. Pretty strange. Man, bad night for Goldberg. Yeah. They have Goldberg and Bret Hart. Show them we're together by winning the tag title, but then lose them the next week as well.
02:58:26
Speaker
But yeah, it's just, like I said, building the best of what, it is the best of what the best of what it will be. Michael Buffer does the introductions and says, this is the last Starrcade of the 20th century. It is not. That would be Starrcade 2000 next year. Maybe Buffer was just honestly wondering if WCW would make it to another one, though. Nice blue tux he's got.
02:58:49
Speaker
Oddly, he ends his intros with, we are ready to rumble, instead of the usual, let's get ready to rumble, which the announcers even note. Hart comes out with yet more generic rock instead of his knockoff WWF theme. Goldberg still thankfully has his usual theme and awesome full entrance with the march from the locker room. No autographs this time though.
02:59:11
Speaker
Some fans in the crowd hold up Goldberg letters in sparkling silver. It was so close. It's still shiny. Maybe there's something I don't know of called a burg, which is the most silver and that's what they're thinking of? Yeah, I don't know.
02:59:29
Speaker
really, really shoddy line from Hudson. Oh God. Yeah. He says that nothing could make up for the loss of Brett's brother. Owen who died in an accident at WWF over the edge, 1999 that may, but ending the year as world champion could go a long way. Don't incorporate someone's actual death into your wrestling story. That's go, go, go. Soda health. Yeah. That was awful. Wow.
02:59:58
Speaker
Brett kisses the title and hands it over to ref Billy Silverman. Tony notes that this is inexplicably a no disqualification match. Thanks Tony. Heart and Goldberg shake hands and we're off.
03:00:14
Speaker
Goldberg proves the stronger on initial lockups, but Hart uses leverage to take him down, and the announcers nicely build up this being about Goldberg's pure athletic ability versus Hart's technique. Goldberg overpowers Hart with a military press and big clotheslines, but Hart counters the rolling ankle lock into a sharpshooter attempt, only for Goldberg to quickly kick free before it's locked in. That was cool.
03:00:38
Speaker
Hart gets the ropes to prevent further holds, even though this is no DQ, and rolls out over the bottom rope. They brawl outside and Hart tries to whip Goldberg into the barricades, but Silverman, who had a good position clear of the fight, suddenly runs in the way for no reason and gets knocked flat. Maybe he saw a squirrel. Ooh, what's that? Ah! Ref bump number one. Ding.
03:01:01
Speaker
Hart and Goldberg brawl by the announce table as Charles Robinson replaces Silverman. Goldberg wins the brawl with some barricade slams. Back in, Goldberg hits a big boot and builds to a suplex takeover, but Robinson stands right in the way so Hart slams into him for Ref Bump 2. I think what happened is maybe before Charles Robinson, he was again in a lay of the land and saw, is that a silver Goldberg slam? Oh god!
03:01:29
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Goldberg tries a spear in the corner, but Hart dodges and Goldberg eats turnbuckle. Hart rolls out, flips the stairs out of his way, and puts on a suspended ring post figure four leg lock. But one of Goldberg's legs slips free, and Hart hits the outside mats pretty hard. Johnny Boone is our third referee. Hart lets go and Goldberg slumps outside the ring. The crowd chants loudly for Goldberg, but he's struggling to stand.
03:01:54
Speaker
Back in, Hart works the leg, even wrapping it around the ropes for a leg lock. Boone counts but can't DQ Hart, although Tony says he can refuse to declare a winner while they're in the ropes.
03:02:05
Speaker
Heart figure four leg lock gets a one count, but Goldberg turns it over and Heart grabs the ropes to break. We get a quiet Goldberg sucks chant from some fans, but much louder cheers as Goldberg tries to fight back. Heart stops that with leg kicks and works the leg some more. Goldberg finally gets Heart by the throat and lands punches, but Boone yells at him despite this being no DQ, distracting him. Heart kicks free, but Boone gets in the way as Heart pulls back for a punch and gets clocked.
03:02:33
Speaker
Whoops, there goes another referee bump. Rough bump three. Thing. Noticing a pattern. Yes. Goldberg reverses a heart whip and sidekicks Hart hard in the face. Hart goes down clutching his head. When he makes it to his feet, Goldberg spears him. Roddy Piper very slowly walks down the entrance ramp wearing a referee shirt and a downhearted expression.
03:03:00
Speaker
Goldberg yells to him to walk faster, but Hart recovers and chop blocks Goldberg, then goes for the sharpshooter as Piper enters the ring. Before it's even locked in, Piper lazily signals for the bell, awarding the match to Hart by submission, because we didn't get enough Montreal Screwdrop references back in 1997.
03:03:19
Speaker
Hart releases Goldberg instantly and questions Piper. Goldberg looks on in disbelief and Hart motions that he has no idea what's going on. Piper grabs the big gold belt and walks away as Hart follows. Hart catches up and yells at him, but Piper just shoves the belt into his hands and walks backstage. Hart and Goldberg both look stunned.
03:03:42
Speaker
So this match is historically important for certain reasons, but let's discuss the match as a match first. Thoughts on it?
03:03:50
Speaker
Um, I thought it was pretty strong. Obviously it's got a quite a big challenge to follow. We just got, um, I did like the story as you laid out that it's, they're trying to push the data that Goldberg is much stronger. So youth factor as well. And Bret Hart is obviously more technically sound. I liked that as the match goes through to make sure that Goldberg does some technical stuff to actually get out of Bret Hart spots.
03:04:14
Speaker
At the same time, Bret Hart has to be more physical to take Goldberg down for his submission holes and things to work. So it's a nice counterbalance of the two ideas. They like adapt to each other. Exactly. Yeah. It was making me think a little bit of like Flair Luger matches. Yeah, I can see that. Just with less outright cheating. Right. The story of the matches though was fine. The action was really good. The problem is just there's so many ref bumps and they're so silly.
03:04:42
Speaker
Oh my gosh. I had to play the last one for the ref to like, faint from the idea of the punch coming near him. Yeah. Or it's like he just runs and throws it out of the ring just preemptively. Like, hold on. Ah! Yeah. I know it's coming. It's so goofy, and this is so... It might have made sense in the cartoonish, like, hardcore thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like, how they keep knocking refs down with, like, trash can there to something. Yes. That would kind of make sense and it would fit the theme of it. But if this it is just...
03:05:11
Speaker
It's a main event match, so we have to have rough bumps. Apparently. While I was watching this, I kept on waiting for like a little thing come achievement unlocked, like zebra speed bump. Yes.
03:05:24
Speaker
It's a bit distracting, but the actual match itself, um, is fine. It's pretty hard to find a bad Bret Hart match. Even at this point when his heart is mostly no pun intended, mostly not in wrestling as much as you speak, especially some of it's out of Montreal to begin with. And obviously post 99, he's at thought of stuff as we know, but he can still clearly deliver when they give him something to work with and Goldberg. So when he clearly wanted to work with him, wanted to have a big match with. Yeah, I thought it works.
03:05:54
Speaker
Great performances by both superstars. I sometimes forget how good Brett is. And it's nice to see that you can kind of still kind of overpower Goldberg in small ways. And Goldberg does a really good job of working with him. There's good chemistry. But do refs not recover?
03:06:17
Speaker
Apparently not in this match. I swear there's one point where like one of them like hits the ground and as he's hitting the ground like in the background you can see another ref moving in. Third guy Boon is up in the ring before they even like announce it. Yeah, it's hilarious.
03:06:32
Speaker
It's like the autopilot from airplane. Yeah. There's a little Pez dispenser that shoots them. Yes. Or they live underneath the ring like the Morlocks they are. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe they do the same thing Midnight does. They should have put out the lights. Oh, that would have been awesome. Yeah. Or have Midnight be a ref. That would have been great too.
03:06:54
Speaker
You know, I didn't see where Goldberg actually got hurt. Where Goldberg got hurt? Yeah, he had like blood on his head. Oh, okay. That's from... That's generally from him head-butting his door during his entrance. Oh. At the start of his entrance, you always hear this... sound that is Goldberg head-butting his door. That can't be good for you.
03:07:13
Speaker
It's his, like, psyching myself up thing, I guess. No, I guess. Same man would do that as well. He would drink beer and he'd smash in his head. Yeah. I thought I'd just miss something. And actually, I was very surprised by Goldberg's kick towards the end. I wasn't expecting that at all.
03:07:30
Speaker
Going into this, I know it's different when you're watching on a recording and everything, you know, you're not doing brief review and you're not there, but when we're at two hours and 22 minutes and the final match is only 20 minutes long, I get a little worried that something's going to happen or maybe it'll just be so amazing, you know, that they're not going to have a weird wrap up.
03:07:57
Speaker
This is one of the very few times that I'm not really a fan of Roddy Piper. Of Roddy Piper, yeah. I don't know if he's just going to bat for Brett. Piper came back around Mayhem. They've done this thing where he's sort of forced to do what the powers be, do what they'll sign him up for a match, and he'll make them mad, and they'll attack him, but... So they do, he's there, and he has to do stuff he doesn't like.
03:08:22
Speaker
So he looks like a guy. Yeah, they feel like he told him something in the back as his idea. And so he knows what he has to do, quote unquote. So that's why he comes out there and he's not in a hurry to do it and he's not happy about it. Okay. But I said they covered that a little more, but that's, yeah. I did get that. I didn't see it as malicious or whatever, but I like it for sure. Oh, for sure, yeah. Clearly it was like. But they should have put a little bit of that in the video or something.
03:08:48
Speaker
I suppose, but I don't get when you have a business where you're running into things. You don't push the plane into a dive.
03:09:02
Speaker
You know, you at least attempt to pull up. And the past Sarcades, it's just been whatever. If you had learned something, this is you at least need to end on the high note. Even if it's going to be off some fans, at least there has to be a definitive non-controversial cut and dry finish. Yeah. That's all you need to know. And we've had three years in a row where we haven't gotten that. Yeah.
03:09:31
Speaker
There's a common mindset in WSW, not even just a Russo thing, that pay-per-views are good, obviously, but pay-per-views are designed to sell TV, because ratings are the most important thing in the world. So you want to build TV if not use TV to build pay-per-view.
03:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, which is the opposite philosophy that has driven wrestling for most of its history in the pay-per-view era anyway and generally drives the WWF. Yes. Which may be why the WWF is being much more successful at this point in pay-per-view realm. And it's still around.
03:10:05
Speaker
Yeah. Don't you get more money initially? You get a lot of money from pay-per-views. Yes. So why would you just shoot yourself in the foot for a more steady income stream? Because it's so important to beat the WWF in the ratings. It's pride, John. It's pride and honor and things like that. And men fighting like men. Yeah.
03:10:30
Speaker
No, it makes no sense. But yeah, that's part of why they do this. That makes use of just the facts, I think.
03:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, Hart and Goldberg put on a good match with an interesting story of Goldberg's raw power and athleticism slowly being overcome by Hart's ring awareness and technique, like you were saying. It keeps up the feeling of mutual respect also, even as things get more heated, which is a tough balancing act. There's a few sloppy spots, and I would have liked maybe a bit more sense of a back and forth. There's clear sections of control for each with really obvious pivot points.
03:11:06
Speaker
But it's an enjoyable match. The insane amount of ref bumps and replacements is bonkers. But for me it didn't really hurt things that much. It's just a couple small points in the match and they work well around it. The ending does hurt things. It's such an unceremonious end to the match. It feels like we build and build and build and then just stop. Yeah.
03:11:30
Speaker
A good match with a seriously disappointing ending, though I'll admit it is at least a little intriguing from a story's perspective. Question for you guys. Why did this need to be no DQ?
03:11:43
Speaker
Uh, like every single ref bump is clearly accidental. And I can't recall any points where anyone failed to break out a five count or really broke any other rules. So this could have just been a regular match. Oh yeah. No, I totally agree. I don't know why it is either. That's very strange. So yes, Tony, it is inexplicably an ODQ match.
03:12:08
Speaker
Oh, that was one thing a little bit appreciated. Hard does the put the leg up on the rope and hit him, you jump him down. He manages to stop himself at two. He doesn't do a third one. He's a savvy ring general. He realizes if I do this a third time, I get countered. That's the rule. Yeah. So I appreciated that. That's funny.
03:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, the leg lock spot into the sharpshooter, I think was my favorite moment of the match. That was really cool. Yeah. As a transition, just the smoothness with which Hart brought it back up. I'm like, yeah, he's, he's been very into that. They all, yeah. They're always into work all day long. It's very cool. Yeah. No, I did like that they played around the ropes too. They were all tangled up right on the turnbuckles. Yeah. You don't always see that. So.
03:12:57
Speaker
Okay, so where do I begin? Following Nitro. We have this weird bit where the powers that be tell Piper in the back that he has to go out to the ring and say he sold out. Because no one will believe him if they blame him for it. Him being Fintry so obviously. Okay. But we see that. So again, I'm not sure what we're supposed to see and what we're not supposed to see. Because then he comes out as if we don't know what happened backstage.
03:13:23
Speaker
That's something almost unique to this era of WCW, this confusion about what reality the wrestlers see and what reality we see. Yeah, I haven't get it at all. Yeah. But so he comes out as if we didn't see that, admits to selling out and goes to leave. Goldberg says he used to respect him, now he doesn't. They were in the story throughout the show that the wrestlers, including Kevin Nash, mind you, talks about how you don't screw over the boys, you don't screw each other over.
03:13:52
Speaker
you know, after lying to the ref to win a powerbomb match. Point. And last year with Goldberg, also point. Also point. And the finger poke of doom. Yes. Yeah. It's a little weird that he's the face of this. Yeah, good point. So later on, Breher himself goes back to the fake end office, sadly with no Le Park in the back, I think it's a serious promo. He asked the powers of B why they did this.
03:14:16
Speaker
Russo explained that he did it to, quote, make up for Montreal because, to be clear, Vint Russo was head writer during that. Oh, you know, I'm pretty sure he didn't have anything to do with that. Wow. So it's not enough that they copied the screw job in some fashion. And that Scott Hudson said, this is Montreal all over again. It's literally have him say, I did it for you to make up for Montreal. Oh, my gosh.
03:14:40
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Heart is mad about that. He declares a title vacant. Apparently I think he's going to do and offers Goldberg a match, basically a rematch of the previous night. So again, also a rematch match you just saw. Okay. Also the title online. I mean, at least this one had an inconclusive finish, so you did want to see it resolved. Right. But yeah, your point's still taken. It's two in a row, man. Yeah. Should have a Powerball match again as well, just to make you happy. No, they absolutely should not have. Yeah, no, they didn't.
03:15:09
Speaker
This leads to the main event of that nitro, where people like Jeff Deere trying to interfere on both sides. Bleaker Henny does as well. But ultimately it comes down to Ruff being down. Both the outsiders show up. Scott Hall walking with a krut initially and then walking like he's not hurt. But it's part of my reason why he could wrestle that night. Okay. They decide to attack Goldberg.
03:15:33
Speaker
and they knock him out. There's a really awkward bit. Pepper comes in, he tries to cover Goldberg, and he's so committed to that, even when they're kicking him, he's not gonna move. But they have to end the match by having Bret Hart pin Goldberg. They have to pull him off really against his will and hit him with the guitar if he actually stays down. So Bret Hart is now well-championed again, or still champion, it's not clear. And he pulls out spray paint. But it's silver spray paint.
03:16:03
Speaker
Because we've reformed the... The end of the... The B.O.O. Yep. This group... At this point, Peter's Jeff... Peter's Fred Art, Jeff, Derek, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall. It will, upon thunder, also include Scott Tyner, who comes back. Okay.
03:16:25
Speaker
So all this stuff on Starrcade about, oh, Hart being not sure what's going on and all this stuff, and this honestly pretty great idea of a match between two faces where they both trade each other respectfully even as things get more heated and everything, pretty great performances, all that stuff, and the weird ending all just leads to, by the way, Bret Hart was probably a heel the whole time. But for some reason chose to reveal it on Nitro
03:16:54
Speaker
Rather than on Sarcade. Correct. Because reasons. Because you need to watch Nitro, the more important show of the two, to see what happens.
03:17:03
Speaker
Okay, look if you're gonna end it in a twist or whatever it would be better to reveal even even if you are trying to sell Monday night You should still end that he is. Oh he betrayed. Yeah, that is so much better do that do that tonight Bret Hart reveals that he was a bad guy and Forms the new version of the NWO and now he's in control of it. You're telling me you think
03:17:28
Speaker
that people would not then tune in on Nitro to be like, oh, what the heck was that all about? It makes no sense. We're going to get more people by not forming the NWO on Starrcade than by forming the NWO on Starrcade. But if you're saying that, then what that means is that you think that forming the NWO again is not going to retract people.
03:17:49
Speaker
So why are you doing it? Right. It's like it doesn't make a lick of sense that you decide to do it on the TV show instead of on Starrcade for a moment like this. It should be your huge twist. Yeah. Can end the night and it will be a, you'll be getting booed and everything, but it'll be for a theoretically good reason. Yeah. I mean, I'm not in favor of the end of you being reformed, but I recognize it's a big storyline moment at least.
03:18:18
Speaker
Oh, and it's the like silver and black now or something, isn't it? Yeah, it's the NWO 2000. Blues Brothers 2000. Oh my gosh. It's the Blues Brothers 2000 of NWO faction, Jess. That movie wasn't totally horrible. It's a great soundtrack. It did have writers on the storm. Yeah, it's a great soundtrack CD, but not a movie.
03:18:39
Speaker
Thunderfong's Darkade. The Inaboo is super happy about what they've done. They've pulled a swerve and everybody, yada yada. Goldberg is attacking the backstage. He attacks Jeff Derritt while he's away. He attacks Hallwall, he's in Nash's locker room, off camera. And he attacks Kevin Nash in the shower, which they think we don't show much, they just imply it. Red Heart rushes to his car, speeds it away.
03:19:05
Speaker
And as he tells in his book, he apparently hit a patch of black ice while speeding away. Nearly swerved by getting control of his car. Which he says is one of the many reasons why he questioned why he's in Debs W because now it's something he's stunt driving and he could have been killed. Yes. He flees. Gobre's mad. He looks to use a limo there to let him in with B for the powers that be. So he starts punching the windows. Mind you, he has his hands all taped up in black tape, so he's literally punching out windows.
03:19:34
Speaker
Then he gets to the side window. He tries to take his forearm, facing away from the limo, and starts smashing it sideways against the window. The third time, he makes the definitive impact, split it into glass, but shoots across his arm. He obviously sever an artery, doing that.
03:19:53
Speaker
The show officially ends with him slamming his fists angry down on the hood of the car. Apparently they quickly stop filming after that, rush over, wrap his wound, take him to the hospital. He was supposedly within an inch or two of where it hit of losing his forearm completely, meaning amputated off. Oh my gosh. He is out until May. Wow.
03:20:20
Speaker
Leading into January shows a bunch of stuff that happens. As I mentioned, Jeff Jarrett is injured.
03:20:26
Speaker
Because they will cover Bret Hart unfortunately is not able to wrestle on that show. So now Russo's got to rewrite his story. And mind if he's also had an actual injury again, or re-injury, it's not clear to Scott Hall, who was written off TV as, quote, just not showing up at the arena and then tactile that vacated, as I mentioned before. He has to pitch a new story to the executive committee and TNT people who are in charge of television. His solution is to give Tank Abbott the world title.
03:20:55
Speaker
They don't like that. They tell him, you're no longer the head writer, you have to write as part of a committee. He says, screw you, and his Brooklyn accent and leaves. That's January, just to be clear. There you go again. Yes. And then there's a rehearse situation. Unfortunately, this world title match had drastic and very real consequences.
03:21:23
Speaker
When Goldberg hit that sidekick to Hart's head, it ended up much more real than it was meant to be. Whether it was timing or Goldberg just not pulling the kick enough, it caught Hart full in the face and gave him a severe concussion. The earlier spot where Hart put on the ring post figure four and collided hard with the floor is thought to have also possibly caused another concussion.
03:21:47
Speaker
Unaware of just how bad his condition was, Hart continued wrestling over the next several shows and further aggravated his injuries until he was forced to vacate the title in January. Hart would make sporadic appearances in 2000, but was unable to return to performing in matches and was released in October 2000, retiring from professional wrestling.
03:22:11
Speaker
Hart did ultimately get to wrestle a small few further matches about 10 years later when he finally buried the hatchet with Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels and returned to the WWF, now the WWE, in 2010. But Starrcade 99 brought an unexpected and sad end to the career of one of the greatest in-ring performers in professional wrestling history. Yeah.
03:22:38
Speaker
It's an accidental thing. Sure. From my understanding, it is not just that hit, but the pile up of him continuing to wrestle, not being aware that he's as hurt as he is that worsens the condition to the extent that he really has to stop. Yeah. He wrestles a hardcore match against Terry Funk before the time. That's not good. That's not going to help. No, I did not help fortunately.
03:23:03
Speaker
I'm not gonna repeat stupid stuff that they repeated, but sometimes it can cost you your life or your career each time you go out there. Not everything goes according to plan, and I think that's why some people value performers.
03:23:19
Speaker
Because at any time on any sport or career where there's a high degree of physicality, you will miss that spot or you'll miss that, that one thing. And, uh, even if it doesn't end your career immediately, it can ultimately start that spiral. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those.
03:23:46
Speaker
tragic things about pro wrestling. I think that sometimes it's a quick thing. Sometimes it's the accumulation over the years, but people put on these great performances, but it changes their quality of life. Some of them
03:24:07
Speaker
finish up well enough and manage to still have a good life afterwards. And some of them never really do. And for one reason or another, they're forever changed by the experience. It can be accumulation like MacFolley over the years had
03:24:26
Speaker
You know all these things and he just doesn't really walk that well anymore and all and or it can be a very sudden moment like like Bret Hart or like what takes Shawn Michaels out for several years. Yeah. Even the skyscraper match. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's risk to the profession. I think sometimes it's easy to forget that. And I mean, it's the common refrain you hear all the time of wrestling's fake, right? But
03:24:55
Speaker
It's a performance art that has very, very real risk. And unfortunately, sometimes we get a really clear reminder of those risks and this is one of those cases. Yeah, it's true.
03:25:08
Speaker
I'm certain that there was still art that Bret Hart was going to be able to perform in that ring. And it's a sad moment among many that happened over the years, but it's just one of the starkest portrayals, I think, of the risk associated with professional wrestling. For sure, yeah. And we don't take a light peep, for sure. Yeah.
03:25:33
Speaker
the show fades out and Starrcade 99 is done. It's a very sudden ending to the show. They just kind of look at each other in stun shock and we're out. They seem like a 2B container to the bottom. Yeah. So overall thoughts on Starrcade 99.
03:25:55
Speaker
It is not a great show overall. It's a good summary for it. There's matches that have promise, but for now they don't deliver. There's matches where they deliver in the ring to a certain degree, but then something dumb is written for that, whether it's lying about power bombs or this or that, and take away from it.
03:26:19
Speaker
There's stuff that was also never going to be that great to begin with, like Oklahoma and anything. And then you ruin it further by him yapping the whole time, distracting from what could have, but more time and effort and none of his nonsense, a really good match between Vampiro and Dr. Death. It does thankfully turn around a bit. You have a strong foreman from Sting and Luger, even giving a slightly modified house show match, I would say.
03:26:46
Speaker
They have the story, you have to keep going forward. It's a shame that this is the start of the story and not the climax of the story, unfortunately. But that doesn't take away from it with the matches. They then weirdly rebalance back down again with how they screw up the platform match. Which I maintain had potential. It's not going to be great, but it could be a good spectacle of big guys playing it to the round and they actually did the right story to it.
03:27:12
Speaker
They mostly hit the landing with the final two matches. They don't screw up the finish, thankfully, with the Benoit Jarrett match. But the final note, unfortunately, is just confusion and nonsense. And it's just, they wanted to watch Nitro. To watch the preview, that's great, but it's more important to watch Nitro and watch Thunder.
03:27:30
Speaker
and Saturday night and whatever other show they're running. And that's why they've got 120,000 people buying this instead of 450,000 or 650,000. Yes. Yeah. I don't want to be curious if like, you know, they say they sell out the next night at Nitro. It'd be funny if it was the same arena, like they sell out for Nitro, but not for Sarcade. Well, it was half of the same matches. Yeah. It's like half the same show too. Right.
03:27:54
Speaker
Very few things fully deliver and it's very long, not actually long in their shows, it just feels longer because they play video packets in a promo and then a match. Yeah. Instead of one or the other. Yeah. Yeah. I think John, you had said, well, we were taking a break at some point. This feels like it should have been a four hour show.
03:28:14
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's packed with a lot of stuff. You got multiple stories going on. You have introduction of new characters, people that are willing to take crowbars to the face. You have rivalries and dissent between teams. You have betrayals, some other unseen hand rolling the dice. You have people that can apparate into existence with darkness. You have
03:28:44
Speaker
All kinds of weird phenomena, like none of the pyrotechnics are working right. You have probably one of the greatest ladder matches I've ever seen. You have people that go in there that they're lost a match and then gain a match to a good effect. There's a lot of narrative. I think that there was something to be learned with each match, even though if it was like, wow, I just lost some time. Going to a fugue state a bit, yeah.
03:29:12
Speaker
Right. I mean, those .9 seconds of Seven's character was very important to me. Yeah.
03:29:23
Speaker
There was a lot of stuff in there. There's a lot of recap into someone that doesn't watch all the other stuff. I know I missed some things, but it was packed. They had a big show planned and they forgot to write the ending. Like they wrote it in order and they just forgot the ending. You need to pull up. Yeah.
03:29:50
Speaker
even if it means giving a predictable outcome.
03:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, sure. That I think gets at one of the central things that people find wrong with Vince Russo's booking philosophy in particular is that he seems to be so interested in doing swerves in fooling the audience that it doesn't matter whether it's logical, whether it's good, whether it makes even a lick of sense. As long as he fools you,
03:30:25
Speaker
He's happy. That's the trouble here is like sometimes it's great to do the predictable ending. Your average Marvel superhero film or something like that. Yeah, most of those end with the superhero beating the super villain and saving the day. Yeah, that's fine because that's part of why people go to see those movies is see their favorite superheroes save the day. Yeah.
03:30:49
Speaker
So now it's okay to do a twist on that like they did with Infinity War, but that should be the exception, not the rule. You want to leave people happy. Either happy or at least invested in seeing what happens next and finding what happens next. The way that this show works gives you neither.
03:31:13
Speaker
Well, they need to focus on the journey and the obstacles and the, I mean, I guess some of that story, and it's kind of hard to fit all that still in a show. But, you know, you know the destination. You'd be like, oh, the hobbits go through Mordor. Now they're in the Shire again. The Mount Doom twist.
03:31:36
Speaker
Yeah, he just suddenly teleports to the Shire rather than... Yeah. It's like, yeah, that would be surprising. And Gandalf actually took the ring, and he's just controlling this Poppet's mind, so he's okay with it. Yeah. Yeah, you can think up any twist you want for any story ever, as long as you aren't burdened by it making any sense. Yeah. Well, WCW's got that. Yep, exactly.
03:31:58
Speaker
Yeah, an absolute mess of a show. Starrcade 99 is unquestionably one of the worst Starrcades. And I think it comes down to a few factors. First, absolutely nothing gets any time to breathe. Yes. We are constantly switching from segment to segment, match to match. Nothing gets time to build drama. We're not allowed to take a moment to have an emotional reaction because the show so quickly moves on to something else.
03:32:28
Speaker
Wrestlers, world title match slightly accepted, barely get a few seconds after their match to try to build off the events they've just performed. Exemplified Best, I think by Sid Vicious just kind of sullenly walking away from the ring in the background even after Kevin Nash blatantly and ludicrously cheated to win their match. Yeah, or Evan Courageous just leaving after they both betrayed him and took his title. Yeah. It's like that would get a reaction on any other Starrcade. Yeah.
03:32:55
Speaker
The backstage promos are just sound bites. Even charismatic and skilled promo guys like Diamond Dallas Page don't have the slightest hope of accomplishing anything meaningful with them because they only have time for two to four sentences before, oh my gosh, we need to move on to something else right now. Yeah.
03:33:11
Speaker
And that's something else, it tends to be insane, outright stupid, or both. People change alliances as a heartbeat. Faces act like heels and heels act like faces. Referees go flying every which way. People win matches by telling refs that they won matches. The rules are more optional than ever before. None of it makes any sense.
03:33:32
Speaker
Some performers manage to rise above the madness and make something of the tiny slots of time that they're given to at least some degree, but even some of WCW's best can barely scrape together an entertaining performance. The odds are against them so much that it takes everything they can do just to pull together something acceptable. Everything seems to have taken several large leaps backwards.
03:33:56
Speaker
The entrance music is almost universally without any sense of character or melody. The announced team, with a few exceptions, can be almost entirely ignored, which is probably for the best, since for much of the show, the sound balance is so bad that you can barely hear much of what they say. The ring work is mostly bad, with miscommunications, a lack of chemistry, and a whole load of botches, at times very dangerous ones.
03:34:19
Speaker
It's a mess. An awful, awful mess. Some of it might work if someone had just been able to take the ideas and give them another pass to refine them, sure, but some of it is just unsalvageable. Even the things that go somewhat right are often colored by things that go very much wrong. There's a few watchable bits of the show, but the only things I can think of to suggest someone maybe seek out and watch in particular are maybe the Benoit Jarrett ladder match and the bit with Sting predicting Elizabeth's heel turn.
03:34:50
Speaker
WCW tried to do something new with Starrcade 1999, and it absolutely did not work. Yeah. One of the rest are crap books, I forget which. They gave a great analogy about what works and doesn't work with ventures of booking. So they say, imagine if you ordered from Domino's and I was pizza, and every time you ordered Domino's pizza, you would get delivery, open the box, and it'd be a newspaper.
03:35:19
Speaker
you'd be very surprised they would have fooled you. But how many times would you order from that Domino's? Yeah, exactly.
03:35:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, to carry the pizza analogy, this show is like if you ordered a pepperoni pizza and you got a pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, sausage, bacon, anchovies, green peppers, banana peppers, chicken.
03:35:50
Speaker
avocado, hot sauce, everything that you could think of piled on there. There's probably something you like mixed in amongst all that stuff, but it's blatantly not what you asked for. And you have to dig through all the other nonsense and ridiculousness to get to something that you like.
03:36:12
Speaker
Yeah. It's work. Pick off all the other stuff and you might get to your dang pepperoni. But yeah, why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just go order another pizza from a different company? Exactly. No, I'm hungry. Now, John's hungry. Sorry, John. All right. Let's do our match of the night and MVP. Probably a given. Still a match I really didn't complain about or critique that much. Match of the night's got to be Crispin Roberts, Jeff Darrin, and a ladder match for you as title.
03:36:42
Speaker
as far as MVP. So one hand, bimball delivers an actually good promo, even his short sound by one, not bad. And it was a really good ladder match. Jeff Jarrett hand, he has a match I don't like as much, but still solid performance in the bunkhouse brawl. And obviously he's really good in ladder match.
03:37:04
Speaker
As silly as this might sound, what really came down to deciding the final thing was when you're recapping his promo before the match, and you first miss slap nuts. I'm like, well, honestly, my mindset was he did two good matches, and as far as I remember, he didn't call in slap nuts. I literally said, I'm like, well, that seals it. Sorry, Jeff. Sorry. Yeah, my MVP is Chris Spinwall.
03:37:33
Speaker
John? I too would choose the latter match. It is tough to make that decision. Jeff, you know, was in a lot of the show and I've never seen so many guitars explode. I haven't been to enough concerts. Yeah. But Benoit gave us something. Story-wise, he planned that I'm probably going to choose
03:38:00
Speaker
Jeff Jarrett, only because he was in so many things, not because I liked him in all those things. I think he was just, had his hand and multiple stuff throughout the night. So we kind of held what little there was of the show together. No, yeah, it's really logical. I got to tour with him too.
03:38:21
Speaker
For my match tonight, brief honorable mention to Sting versus Luger for some good storyline stuff in a good moment and waking me back up. But it's the Jared versus Ben Wild Ladder match. I mean, no question that is by far the best match on the show. Yeah.
03:38:39
Speaker
It was the only match that I felt was done well across the board, not just in being reasonably acceptable like a couple others, but actually managing to be good on a show where very little was. It has creative spots, performed well, and it's particularly impressive considering that it was originally supposed to be Benoit versus Hall, and that Jared already wrestled on the same night. So it's a good, exciting match, even despite
03:39:07
Speaker
the odds being a little bit stacked against it. And there's just not that many good matches on this show. So yeah, it easily takes it. For MVP, I'm tempted to give this to Diamond Dallas Page for getting something remotely watchable out of a crowbar on a pole match against David Flair. But I'm giving it to Jeff Jarrett as well. He wrestled in two of the longer matches of the night and two of the harder hitting ones besides.
03:39:36
Speaker
like you, Al, I didn't really like the bunkhouse brawl, but the ladder match was very good. And it seems like there was just a lot put on his shoulders tonight and he proved very reliable. It's not his fault that some of the things being put on his shoulders weren't great to begin with. He did his job as best he could in bad situations and that earns him my MVP.
03:39:57
Speaker
And I'm also gonna give an anti-MVP tonight. Okay, go ahead. That would be Mark Johnson, referee for the Powerbomb match, for one of the worst jobs selling a referee bump that I have ever seen in my life. Absolutely laughably bad. Oh yeah, for sure.
03:40:16
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Starcade 99. 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. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about the Starcades as we go through. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Podcasts, High Heart Radio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or TuneIn.
03:40:43
Speaker
And please, if you've enjoyed the show, give us a rating or review and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to OSW Review for our attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. Join us next time for Starrcade 2000. Unedited. Unpredictable.
Conclusion and Reflections on Starrcade Series
03:41:05
Speaker
Unreal. It's the 18th Starrcade. And the last.
03:41:12
Speaker
A series that has run since 1983 reaches its final iteration. Will Star Kid go out with a bang or with a whimper? We'll find out next time. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling. And watching this may make you wish for Y2K. Nice.
03:41:51
Speaker
Spice suddenly climbs up on the apron and makes out with courageous, and Medusa slaps courageous, and Spike hits the gentlest punch to the balls. Wait, did I call her Spike? You did. I did, sorry. Let's see.