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Episode 61: Bash at the Beach 1998
35 Plays1 year ago
It's 1998! With the evil champ Hollywood Hogan at their head, nWo Hollywood wars with nWo Wolfpac and WCW for control. Now, at Bash at the Beach...wait, Hogan's not champ anymore? Goldberg is? The nWo Wolfpac is an afterthought? Well, at least Curt Hennig and Giant will have an interesting match against Goldberg and Kevin Greene...wait, that match turned into two matches? Surely Dean Malenko vs. Chris Jericho must be stable, right? Right?
It's amazing how unplanned WCW's planning feels sometimes.
For all this, plus WCW for some unknown reason deciding to actually hold another match involving Dennis Rodman, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Event Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
I cannot tell you how tempted I was to just write, nothing happens, aggressively so, for 20 minutes. And may I have that as my recap?
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 joined by our own knockoff version of noob Saibot, Alec Bridget. A tube nybot, I guess? How's it going tonight, Al? Good. How's it going with you? Doing all right. Tonight, we are taking a look at Bash at the Beach, 1998.
00:01:08
Speaker
like Skinny Dippin' in the Shark Tank. I haven't watched much of that show, but I have to say I'm not sure that would get you an investment deal. Yeah, I feel like they wouldn't air that episode. Probably, yeah. I think that would violate at least some standards and practices. Yeah, I would say so.
00:01:25
Speaker
Bash of the Beats 1998 was held on July 12, 1998 at the Cox Arena in San Diego, California, in front of a sold-out crowd of 10,095 fans. 9,031 paid. The Cox Arena had actually been open only for almost a year at that point. It opened July 24, 1997. Now known as the, and I'm sure I'm going to get this pronunciation incorrect, Vigius Arena?
00:01:52
Speaker
I want to say it's VAHAS. VAHAS? That's probably better, yeah. I think it's VAHAS, yeah.
00:01:57
Speaker
Now known as the Viejas Arena, it has also played host to wrestling events from TNA and AEW.
Main Event Build-up: Malone and Rodman
00:02:05
Speaker
Bash the Beats 1998 earned 525,000 pay-per-view buys. That's over twice last year's number. My goodness. 1998 is an astonishingly good year for WSW considering that it comes after they kind of killed the whole NWO storyline back at Starrcade 1997. Yeah.
00:02:26
Speaker
Before the show, there was one dark match. Viano IV and Viano V defeated Damian and Cyclope. So no Vianos trading places on the main show this year, Al. Dang. More importantly, sadly, we don't have a La Parca match. Ow. Could the show possibly still be worth watching? At least if you're anyone other than Al. We'll have to see. Let's go to the ring.
00:03:58
Speaker
What a massively annoying opening video package. Yeah, right. Hey, here's a great idea. Let's do absolutely no actual story recapping and instead just say the names of people in the main event, but put so many audio effects over the top, you basically can't understand anything. Yeah. It is awful. And that's even without mentioning what it's actually promoting another tag team main event starring Dennis Rodman. Yeah.
00:04:23
Speaker
Oh joy, my dream. Host Tony Schiavone welcomes us to the show alongside co-hosts the professor, Mike Tenet and Bobby the Brain Hienan. All are dressed casually with Tony and Hienan in Hawaiian shirts and leis, while Tenet is dressed more like he's headed to the neighborhood backyard barbecue. That's fair, yeah. He tried. I mean, he's a professor. They are not going to be hip. Yeah, yeah.
00:04:47
Speaker
Tony notes that the new world champ Goldberg has a match against Kurt Hennig, but the world is talking about one match. Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone of the Utah Jazz versus Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman of the Chicago Bulls.
00:05:08
Speaker
Today builds up how many media organizations are here tonight. Hienan notes that Hogan blames Malone and DDP for his loss to Goldberg, and Rodman and Malone had it out during the NBA playoffs. Tony again mentions the world title match and throws to mean Gene Okerlund. Gene, on this year's again lovely beach set, says that Henig, an NWO Hollywood member, would love to get the world title back for their spiritual leader, and indeed, their leader.
00:05:39
Speaker
Okay, but there's no time to dwell any further on that weird statement because he has to advertise the capsule composite from today on the WSW hotline 1-900-909-9900 or if you're Canadian 1-900-451-5344 Doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well. Yeah, get your act together Canada
00:06:03
Speaker
So our first match is Perry Saturn versus Raven with Lodi and Riggs in a Raven's Rules match. Referee for this one is Nick Patrick. Saturn would leave Raven's flock after being a member for a while after experiencing too much abuse, both physical and mental. However, he would be the only one to do that and no one would follow suit. And so now he's got the Oak Group against him.
00:06:27
Speaker
During this time, Canyon would also try to join the flock as we've seen on other shows. Weirdly, he'd try to join as Mortis and then just take the mask off as if the, I guess we thought they didn't know he was the same guy, perhaps? I mean, that'd probably fool Reese, to be fair. He's not the smartest guy. Yeah, yeah.
00:06:44
Speaker
Cannon tries to join and they reject him, so he
Saturn vs. Raven Storyline
00:06:48
Speaker
begins his own separate campaign. Towards the tail end of this buildup, the two of them team up. However, they don't really align, so they both basically fight the flock, but if they get each other's way, they'll hit each other as well. Yes. It's after this, right? The Road Wild 1998 match. Correct. Where it's a three-way match and they're basically beating each other up just about as much.
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It would all fall apart in the go home nitro where they were seemingly inadvertently attack each other. Oh, the first one's definitely seemingly inadvertent. The followed by Canada is very inadvertent, I guess would be the word for it. So this point it's still just Saturn against Raven without anyone helping them. Saturn comes out to his tremendously annoying siren music. Raven comes out to his WWE theme. So overdubbed theme count one.
00:07:40
Speaker
Part of the beach set today is a sand pyramid decorated with a skull. It looks like the Punisher took a break from killing criminals to have some fun on the beach. Yeah, I saw that. It was really weird. Someone in the crowd has a sign reading, today is Saturday. It was Sunday. Yeah. And today's also not Saturday, in case you're wondering. Yeah. Riggs looks appropriately confused. Yeah. There's a great shot of him looking at the angle. What?
00:08:08
Speaker
Saturn aggressively attacks, landing strikes and barricade rams, but slips off the top rope and quickly recovers with a drop kick. Tene praises his quick thinking, but it kind of sounds like a backwards compliment. He means to say, Saturn slipped off the top rope just momentarily, regained his senses, and laid him out with a drop kick. But it comes out as, slipped off the top rope, just momentarily regained his senses, and laid him out with a drop kick.
00:08:38
Speaker
Saturn gets an ankle lock, but Raven gets the ropes. Normally we'd question if that should actually cause a break in a no DQ match, but this is Raven's rules. So I guess he'd know. Right. Well, it's his rules. Yeah. If he wants it to be a break, then yeah, it's a break. I'm always astonished. He's like Raven's rules match. And one of the rules is not Raven wins. Yeah. He was just like Raven can use all weapons and no one else can.
00:09:04
Speaker
You must get a 10 count on Raven. Yeah. Even if Raven submits, it just gives him a five minute break and the flock can take his place during that time. Basically making a Texas death match. Yeah. Yeah. What was it? A Chicago six man tag Texas death match or something was on the first show. Tag confusing.
00:09:27
Speaker
Raven dodges a leg drop, hits a snap suplex, and sets up a table. Tony calls it a chair, earning jabs from Henan and Tenet. Raven tries suplexing Saturn on the table, but Saturn crotches him on the ropes instead. Raven dodges a springboard dive and hits a Russian leg sweep into the barricade for two. A child in the crowd, very audibly, tells Saturn that he sucks.
00:09:50
Speaker
Poor guy's down there selling a, you know, they get knocked out of the head injury and that's good shouting at him. You suck, Saturn. Yeah. He's got to be like right by the commentary table or something. Cause he comes, there's a various points throughout the night where you hear this kid very loudly. Raven sleeper, but Saturn jawbreaker is free. T-bone suplexes him and grabs a chair. Tony jokes that it's a table. Good man, Tony. Yeah.
00:10:17
Speaker
Saturn chair shot and chair-assisted springboard leg drop for two. He fights off Riggs and Lodi, but Raven dodges a leaping kick and Saturn nails Patrick, who sells only marginally better than he did with Luker at Hogwild 1996.
00:10:31
Speaker
It's so funny because he he's starting to sell like he's knocked out with his eyes open while gripping the top rope desperately to lower himself as gently as possible as gently as possible to the ground. Well, it's for aiming as well. Like he he he holds himself as long as he can to aim. He doesn't drop right away because Raven's down there. Yes. So he lowers up a little more and then falls to the side.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, we can't fully blame this on Patrick. I think Raven's slightly in the wrong place as well afterwards and collectively they got their timing wrong. But what's funny about it is his initial reaction to the hit is good. Yeah. Like he's like, oh, I'm unconscious. But then all the everything that follows is ridiculous. Yeah. Right. Saturn sets Raven on the table, then sets a second table above Raven for no apparent reason. He goes up top, but Canyon comes out and pulls Raven away.
00:11:22
Speaker
Saturn clearly sees this, but dives anyway, putting himself through the top table, and entirely missing the bottom table that Raven would have been lying on if he'd still been there.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah. What is the best case scenario for this spot in Saturn's mind? Yeah, yeah. OK, so I'm going to elbow drop a table that's posted above Raven, thus driving the centerpieces, I guess, into his heart. That's all I can figure, because I would understand if he'd set the second table flat on top of Raven. Yeah, sure. They'd be like, OK, this is one of those things where like when they set a ladder on someone where they're like, oh, this adds to impact.
00:11:59
Speaker
Yeah, or you put a chair or something. Yeah, you know, but he sets it standing with the legs extended on top of the table. So it's not in contact with Raven at all. He's going to crash through it himself. Raven's not going to have any contact from that table unless it's like you said shards that jab into vital Bart's fits anatomy. Yeah.
00:12:16
Speaker
The spot makes no sense. And Saturn's aim makes less. Maybe he thinks, so if I hit this table above him, instead of fully stopping my momentum, it'll actually increase the force which I drive an elbow. So it's really just to speed me up. Like a little bump. Going through something. Yeah. All the laws of physics, they should slow you down. He painted the chevrons on the table off camera. And so it's like a speed boost table. Exactly. Yeah.
00:12:41
Speaker
That's the only possible explanation for this. Well, what's funny is in the next month's show, as we recovered, we'll see the double stack table and they set a guy on top of it. Yes. I think it's the nasty boys that do it or the public enemy. Okay. So I hate myself less for saying this, but that makes much more sense. Yeah. I don't normally like to praise the public. I'm here to get the merry praise they deserve. Yeah. Yeah. Kenyon celebrates with Raven, then flatliners Raven onto the chair.
00:13:11
Speaker
Two counts off Saturn's self-table crash, a Raven drop toehold onto the chair, and a Saturn chair assisted kick. Rig saves, so Saturn Death Valley drivers him, but Raven hits the Evenflow DDT for the three count and the win. Hienan actually cheered for Saturn to kick out there, which is kind of unusual. The only time he normally cheers for faces is when they're facing the NWO. Right, yeah.
00:13:38
Speaker
Overdubbed theme count, two, as Raven's WWE theme plays again. Thoughts on this one?
00:13:45
Speaker
As a whole, I think it's a pretty fun chaotic match. It's clear that these guys have worked together before. They have good chemistry is very apparent. The tricky part for me as always with block stuff is how the interference has worked in because it's interesting this match because they don't really interfere until the one spot where they suddenly do. Yeah. And Saturn does the double back suplex, which looks really nice.
00:14:11
Speaker
But that also means that they have to be unconscious to not interfere with any of the table step stuff because Canyon's got to save him. Right. So they sell that back suplex for quite a long time. It's a thing we'll talk about. Like if you're in a match, you get punched, you know, get back up. But if you're, but if you run out to save spring head punch, you go, Oh man, it hurts so much. I can't get up. Or if you're attacked backstage, it's like one hit, you're down unconscious. The doctors are checking on you. Exactly. Yeah. The Canyon spot. Again, the timing is off on that a bit. Yeah.
00:14:41
Speaker
Except should I get the idea that, okay, I'm going to do an extra dangerous thing to his guys. I really hate him. I want to take him out. But yeah, then he knows he's not going to hit him and just jumps anyways. Yes.
00:14:54
Speaker
is clearly it's supposed to be Canyon pulls him off the table immediately as Saturn jumps, but their timing is just completely wrong. I don't know if it's Canyon being too early or if Saturn maybe didn't feel like he had his balance right yet, so he didn't jump when he was supposed to. Don't know, but clearly something goes wrong there.
00:15:12
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's when the way it plays out, it seems like he's supposed to be looking away like he's setting his balance. Yeah. So he doesn't see can't even overdo it. You definitely get a clear shot of him looking right dead center. Yeah. When it's funny, too, is in hindsight, it kind of works out better. If you look at the way it actually plays out. Yeah. Saturn hits that table and goes past it. Yes. If they'd done like a quick thing where Katie grabbed him and pulled him there, he would he would have crashed into them. He totally would have hit them the way he actually comes down because the same was wrong. Yeah.
00:15:43
Speaker
So it's weird, like this, this hilarious spot because all the timing's off and why is the face so stupid to do this in a weird way does work out as best it could. It's actually far safer than if you've gotten it right. Yeah. He would have hit a table with the elbow and then carried that with him and basically like a dive at them. Yes. I can't imagine that it felt good. Yeah. It's a rare thing when the spot goes wrong and you're like, wow, that's way safer than it would have been otherwise. Yeah. Right.
00:16:10
Speaker
The match pacing is weird, especially with the finish. So you have the big spot, but then when he's pushed in by Lodi, Saturn until kicks out and you have, you know, can attacking Raven, but then the match kind of goes on for another minute after that. Yeah. It feels like, it feels like the match reach where it endpoints should be somehow. Like Saturn, maybe Saturn is thrown in, but they don't see the canyon things. Saturn sort of lays on top of Raven to pin him. So he gets to win, but he doesn't actually really beat him. So it's not decisive.
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, or or just I mean, if Saturn's losing anyway, just have it work when he he's rolled in after the crashing himself through the table. Yeah. Just have Raven get a pin on him. Yeah, maybe can't attack him then. Yeah. Raven gets the pin celebrates and then can't. And that is like yay and crash. Yeah. Yeah. There's a bunch of different ways you could have done it. It does. It did feel very weird to me that the match was continuing after its biggest spot.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah. Cause like here's a big spot and a turn. Oh, by the way, no, let's keep going. And here's his ordinary finisher. Yeah. This wasn't what we normally get for an opening match, but I liked it overall. Saturn and Raven put together some quite creative spots with the chair and makes them some good solid wrestling. I appreciate the mix here. They do some hardcore brawling, but they aren't just hardcore brawling.
00:17:27
Speaker
The flock and canyon get involved just about the right amount. I do take your point that they're kind of down for an unusual amount of time, but I liked that there was flock interference, but not a ton of flock interference. They're important to the match, but they don't overwhelm things.
00:17:43
Speaker
The double table spot, as we mentioned, was really dumb. It just didn't make any sense in the fictional reality of wrestling. Going through a table does a wrestler a lot of damage in the storyline. Why would Saturn set up a move where before he even hits Raven, he has to go through the table himself?
00:18:00
Speaker
He set up a spot where even if it goes right, it's like if someone had pulled the Raven off the table that he's hitting first. He sets up a spot where he essentially misses the guy on the elbow drop. And then hits the guy on the elbow drop. Yeah. Yeah. You're intentionally doing to yourself the thing that causes people to lose matches. Yeah. It makes no sense why you would think to do that.
00:18:22
Speaker
But aside from that strange bit, it was a fun opener with a pretty nice, sudden ending. I do totally agree that it feels weird that it goes past that big bit, but I think because of the weirdness of that bit, I'm kind of glad it did. Right. Yeah. The last moment isn't that bizarre finish. Isn't the one thing were you thinking? Right. Yeah. I can see that.
00:18:44
Speaker
So Edward Wildis builds up to a triple threat Raven's Rules match, involving Canyon, Saturn, and Raven, of course, since they all clearly don't get along and Canyon, I guess, wanted to be friends with Saturn, but that didn't work out.
Guerrero Family Feud
00:18:58
Speaker
So I just beat him up too. It's Canyon we're talking about. He makes interesting choices. Let's see that. Yeah, yeah. Considering how good friends he is with DDP, you'd think that he would have better foresight and planning. That's true, yeah.
00:19:16
Speaker
We go back to Gene Okerlund, who jokes that the flock dragging Raven out of the arena looks like the time that Gene got drunk. I'm pretty sure that's what he's saying anyway. He welcomes Eddie Guerrero to the stage, as Eddie does his best sneer.
00:19:32
Speaker
You know, I think if anybody is eminently qualified to discuss a hair versus hair match, Eddie Guerrero, I believe I might be that person. First of all, you have your nephew, Chavo Guerrero, meeting the big Harlem Heat, Stevie Ray. I think that's gonna give you a very unfair competitive advantage when later on you meet him in the actual hair versus hair match.
00:19:54
Speaker
You know, Gene, when I went home the other night looking and thinking at the match ahead, hair versus hair, Chavo, I can't deny but to admit that yes, I was concerned a little bit, Wacko, because I know that you're not really there.
00:20:12
Speaker
But brother, when you really accepted to get in the ring, when you challenged Stevie Ray to get in the ring and wrestle him before you got a match with me, man, that I know you are whacked out for sure. Brother, all I'm gonna have to do is just come in and pick up what's left of you. Because you know what Stevie Ray is gonna do to you? He's gonna demolish you and just leave you lying in the ring.
00:20:40
Speaker
with no hope whatsoever, Chavo. And just like a great uncle and loving uncle that I am, I'm just gonna come in, frog splash ya, give you a nice haircut, and send you back home to mama. You really are going to give your nephew, if you win the match, a haircut. I am not only gonna cut his hair, but in front of all these San Diego morons, I am going to shave his head.
00:21:08
Speaker
All right a very determined Eddie Guerrero. First of all it's going to be Stevie Ray and Chavo and then hair versus hair. Eddie and Chavo Guerrero. Uncle and nephew right here at Bash at the Beach.
00:21:22
Speaker
Not Eddie's best promo. No. He kind of stumbles on his words a few times and he doesn't seem to have quite worked out how he wants to say things. Yeah. Restarts a few sentences. Still, he gets his overall point across and he makes it very clear that he's the bad guy out to humiliate his own nephew. So it does work.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. He definitely lays on the foreshadowing pretty heavily. Yes. But how much emphasis is going to be on Stevie Ray's going to beat you and leave you in the ring and I'll just pick the pieces. Not subtle, but it is also wrestling. So very true. Yeah. You got it. Got to play to the people in the 73rd row. Exactly.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah, I was wondering where you get his character across as well, which is sort of natural energy works, but he definitely doesn't have the exact wording down and the rhythm of it down for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Feels like a first draft of quite a good promo. Yeah. But as it is, it does work. And someone stumbling over their words as long as they don't then say, oh, I screwed up. Can we do it again? Yeah. We're live, pal. We're live, pal. Yeah.
00:22:26
Speaker
That's not really a problem. It's just unusual coming from Eddie Guerrero. He's a normally a very polished promo guy. If anything, this makes it sound less fictional. So that's fair. Yeah. If this had been, let's say, 2002, Asia in the same promo for whatever reason, he might still have stumbled a bit, but he would have put it in line like, oh, how it's got to be so upset. I can't even think straight or something. Yeah. And then gone on and why would mess it up? So it's it's little things you pick up with experience that would have gotten later.
00:22:56
Speaker
Our second match is Kidman with Lodi versus Huventud Guerreira. The referee for this one is Mark Shooter Curtis. Kidman's entrance theme sounds a lot like Pearl Jam's Evenflow, which given he's a member of the flock is probably not a coincidence.
00:23:15
Speaker
Kidman looks a lot cleaner than in the early days of The Flock, seemingly having dropped the implied heroine user part of the gimmick. Hoovey has sadly lost his mask since last year, but he makes it work, thankfully. He does, yeah. There's some wrestlers that lose the mask and kind of like that loses their identity, but Hoovey I think manages to just take that as an evolution of his character and keep it going. Absolutely, yeah. Rapid counters in acrobatics, but Hoovey gets the best of it.
00:23:42
Speaker
Whovie clotheslines Kidman out, but as he prepares to dive, Logie drags him out, clubs him down, and holds him for a Kidman dive. But, Whovie dodges and Kidman nails Lodi. Whovie dives on both of them for good measure. More rapid counters lead to a high-velocity Kidman wheelbarrow suplex that looked like it hurt. And they fight out on the floor with barricade shots and a Whovie side sunset flip powerbomb.
00:24:08
Speaker
Back in, Hoovey gets Kidman up top, but Kidman slugs him in the crotch, and top rope spine busters him for two and a half. That also looked like it hurt. It did, yeah, the sudden stop of the ending. Yeah, not the fall that kills you. That's true, yes. Lodi holds up a sign that reads, weather's here, Hoovey's not beautiful. I have no idea what that means.
00:24:33
Speaker
I mean, I think he's trying to say that the weather here is beautiful, but who isn't get maybe. But the the order is confusing. We're missing like a generous portion of that sentence. Yeah. Maybe you wrote the sign for him. Maybe he maybe that explains it. I'll do you a favor like I'll do one for you. They trade strikes and dodge close lines, but who he rolls through a Kidman slam for two Kidman drop kicks the heck out of him. Mm hmm.
00:25:01
Speaker
Two counts off a hoovy springboard Frankensteiner, hoovy bridging suplex, hoovy Sambo suplex, Kidman rope spring bulldog, hoovy double-leg takedown roll-up, and the hoovy driver. Kidman spinebuster, but hoovy dodges the seven-year itch, the shooting star press, and hits the 450 splash for the three count and the win. That did not look fun for Kidman at the end, as the replay clearly shows hoovy's knees landing on Kidman. Yeah. Right in the gut.
00:25:32
Speaker
who we really needed to pull him just a little further out from the corner. He gets too much distance on his jump. Thoughts on this one? This is a really fun match. It was a good showcase for both men. This is around the time they're trying to separate Kidman from the flock. This is a good test. Obviously, he still has most of his flock identity. He's really just changing from his weird t-shirt to his tank top. And he's pretty much there as far as look goes.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, he's lost the gimmick that was the kind of implied heroine use. Right now, he's on this black shirt with an onc. Like I said, one shirt changed away from just being Kidman that we all know and love.
00:26:10
Speaker
What weirdly, his black shirt also tucked in, does it? Yes. That was an interesting choice. I don't know. Yeah. Is it better for your wrestling if your shirt's tucked in? I don't know. I'm thinking, because the commentator's actually specifically mentioned it's tucked in, I'm thinking it might actually be intended to show separation, again, between his old prior more grungy look, where it was just kind of a total mess, and then now he's kind of cleaned up his act. So I guess tucking in your shirt is part of cleaning up your act.
00:26:37
Speaker
I mean, my shirt's untucked so clearly. I'm a disaster of a person. Yeah, you really need to get some help. Yeah. Yeah. You too. You too, man. I've accepted that though. We both got problems. Yes. But yeah, I like this match, even though there's really no build for this at all, but one of the ones they just basically said, you guys go out, do all your stuff. It looks really great. The loading unit, if you're into this, thankfully pretty minimal. He's there for setup and that's it.
00:27:02
Speaker
I was thinking about this too. It's a little weird. There's like, I don't know how many people at this point. There's seven or eight of them at this point. I think. Admittedly, there's a good, there's a good number. There's more than five. It's that just say, yeah, I think so. So you see two of them out. And then you see one of the same people out in this matches. Yeah. It was a little weird that we didn't have a different block member. I guess everyone loves Lodi. I guess so.
00:27:26
Speaker
Well, I like cause they keep a good pace going as well. There's issue. You can have some time with big high spot matches where you do a spot and there's a long pause. Okay. I'm going to get transitions, right? Like you go right from big spot to big spot. Getting to there is always the key, the sort of Genesee qua, I guess you got to get that. I think they do a pretty good job of that of doing, you know, a nice set of moves to a big dive and so on and so forth. That's a whole, I thought they did a really good job with the smash.
00:27:55
Speaker
So on the on Kidman's kind of slow gimmick change here, I think we might have talked about this when we were watching the show. It's a little weird to me that they start moving him away from the very negative gimmick, the, you know, drug abuser gimmick. Yeah. Well, he's still part of the flock. Is that weird to you? I can see that. Yeah. You maybe want to be the flock breaks up and you see like him talking to Saturn because right shows up like two weeks later and he looks a little different.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, you don't have to ever like say it right out of the open, but it feels like he should only get to this midway point of cleaning up his act once he's at the very least having problems with Raven. Right. Yeah. Like Raven should be using this to keep control of him. Yeah.
00:28:40
Speaker
Not as mind-blowing as some other lucha or cruiserweight matches that we've seen, but this was still a lot of fun. Hoovy and Kidman had some really nice counter sequences and showed off their acrobatic abilities and their ability to take a hard landing. Yeah, some of those moves had impact.
00:28:56
Speaker
I appreciate again that Lodi got involved, but only to a limited degree. He probably actually could have gotten a tad more involved. You can see him in the background as who he hits the 450, but he just kind of stands there until the move is hit, then charges over to try and make the save far too late. Oh, okay. Yeah. It felt a little bit like Chono last year, where you can see his buddies in trouble, but he doesn't try to save him when he clearly can. So I think it's just that he's looking when he's not supposed to be yet. Yeah, I can see that.
00:29:23
Speaker
Still a good match, but with a painful looking ending. Not a, not a knock on the previous Raven and Saturn match, but I feel like they could have switched these matches around and you could have had more story that way. You know, Kidman lose the match and maybe he's being helped up by Lodi and Raven comes out for his entrance during that. Shove Kidman down, but typically tells Lodi to go with him. So he, he has Lodi leave, you know, leave Kidman there and Kidman sort of kind of crawls back or get help.
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah, that kind of thing, especially if you're aiming, like you said, to kind of start Kidman on his way out of the flock. Yeah. Then that's a good way of doing it. And there's a couple of points where Lodi gets hit during this match. So it would also help with your express problem of the first match where, you know, he gets hit one time by Saturn and he's down for a longer time. If he's already taken some damage, then that's very that kind of helps with that.
00:30:15
Speaker
And just in general pacing, I probably would have put this one first as well. The other one was not bad at all as an opener. But if you've got both of these on the show, this one's more high energy the whole way through. Get the crowd charged up. Then they'll be in the mood, I think, for the a little bit more storyline focused Saturn Raven one.
00:30:32
Speaker
Right. I see that. So they, plus again, you'd have Kidman losing for the flock, but then Raven winning, although you're a complicated means. So again, you have more for Raven as a character as well. Yeah. By the time Road Wilder come around in a few weeks, who we would become the number one contender to decrease the weight title. We cut to the internet table where Lee Marshall is interviewing Conan for the WCW website.
00:31:03
Speaker
It's like somebody switched on the switch and all of a sudden everybody wants to hang with K-Dog, everybody wants to be rowdy, rowdy, and bowdy, bowdy, but I know everybody can't hang with you. Yeah, just like the switches in the low rider, like the hydraulics going up and down, side to side, pancake. That's why we're hot right now. I think, you know, who don't want to hang out with the couple? Kevin Nash, Sting, Lex Luger, Macho. I mean, I could, you know, hey, man, we're going to have this party down and tee. You know what?
00:31:51
Speaker
Lee Marshall and Conan's car show and fashion commentary, apparently. Honestly, I'd be kind of up for that.
00:31:59
Speaker
This didn't really need to be on the show though. Normally they do a better job of at least showing a clip of one of these that clearly relates to the match that the wrestler is going to have. Yeah. But this was just kind of random discussion.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you get to point across that, hey, we're the wolf pack and we're really cool. But yeah, other than that. Yeah, it's it just establishes his basic character. It says nothing about disco. I guess maybe you could take it that Lee's opening statement is about the fact that disco is going to imitate Conan's catchphrases when he comes out. But it's like barely, barely related.
00:32:32
Speaker
Yeah, I would have Conan, you know, do his line up at how cool we are and all that wants to be like us and then turn that into an insult on disco. Yes. Yeah. That's giving us some storyline for this match or to be nice. Our third match is Stevie Ray versus Shavo Guerrero Jr. Referee for this one is Scott Dickinson.
00:32:57
Speaker
So Eddie has been antagonizing and sort of insulting and degrading his nephew, Chavo, for weeks and months at this point. So for instance, he would walk out and during a tag team match, he didn't get beaten up, or he challenged someone like say Scott Norn to a match. No, actually I can't wrestle the night, but Chavo will do it, just sort of throw him into the ring, that kind of stuff.
00:33:16
Speaker
This finally makes Chavo snap and he goes against his sort of unofficial code he had going, which was he had lost a match and he agreed to be subservient to Eddie. He finally did too much of that. He couldn't do it anymore.
00:33:28
Speaker
Around this time, there's a bit on Thunder, where Stevie Ray is having issues with Booker T, which I'll get into for their segment. So Chavo comes out and, you know, this week he's fooling crazy. He's trying to like console him and say, you know, I, I understand we're going through a week, you know, we could be friends, you know, we can relate to this kind of thing. Diggory, of course, does not like that and sort of leaves and Chavo doesn't happy about it.
00:33:51
Speaker
The same night, and also on Thunder, we would get a very interesting in-ring segment where travel would go into the ring with the lights down low, set a cartoon trap, the one where you put a box and the rope could bait inside of it and you pull the string. Wow. And he literally writes, act me Eddie trap on the box, in case you don't get it.
00:34:11
Speaker
He puts a burrito on a plate, by the way. I guess it's okay if he does it. He goes outside the ring. He's holding the rope towards the hidden, right? Cause the house lights are down. But he's also on the house, Mike saying, you know, here, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. So he's not quite clear on how stealth works. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at this point I'm better at stealth in games than he is, which is sad.
00:34:36
Speaker
I mean, admittedly, one of the greatest stealth characters of all time thinks that you sneak around places easily by putting a cardboard box on and crawling around in the open, so... Yeah, he learned the wrong lesson from this segment, clearly. Yeah, yeah. Unsurprisingly, this fails, and Eddie attacks him, during which he takes a pair of scissors that Chavo brought out, because he's going to cut the rope and drop the thing down, and he cuts a big chunk out of Chavo's hair. Oh, okay.
00:35:03
Speaker
So the next week on Nitro, Chavo comes out wearing a hard hat to cover up the incident, wins his match and challenges Eddie to a hair versus hair match. I saw the interaction with Chavo and Stevie Ray, but I looked, there's no point that I could see where he actually challenged Stevie Ray to a match. Oh, interesting.
00:35:22
Speaker
Unless it's a bit where the announcer just say during a random match, I maybe there's no in-ring promo where he says it, nor does he like and the in-ring segment with Stevie Ray challenging himself. OK, just something that has clearly happened, but we don't know exactly when exactly. Stevie is in his red outfit tonight. Chavo has a swim ring and a super soaker and wears a shirt stating Eddie Guerrero is my favorite wrestler. He sprays the super soaker over the crowd.
00:35:52
Speaker
Eddie comes out to watch, showing off some scissors. Chavo asks for a microphone and dedicates the match to his favorite wrestler, Eddie Guerrero. I think he also calls him like a little trooper or something like that. Yes. That's an insult he had been given by Eddie. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Stevie looks very annoyed. Chavo dodges Stevie, makes muscle poses and offers a handshake. Stevie begrudgingly takes his hand and Chavo immediately falls to his knees and submits, giving Stevie the win.
00:36:22
Speaker
Stevie is enraged, but the ref holds him back from Chavo as the match is over. Chavo gets the microphone and tells Eddie that he's really exhausted from that match, but it's time for Chavo and Eddie to wrestle. Eddie throws a tantrum and yells at Stevie who clares at him so Eddie loses all bravado and backs down. Huge Eddie sucks chant from the crowd. Thoughts on this one?
00:36:47
Speaker
I think it's a fun bit of misdirection here to their credit. They obviously could have added work like a short singles match and had trouble finding somebody to like get a sneaky pin or like trick him into, you know, knock him over or something. This way protects Evie Ray a bit more, just nice. Yeah.
00:37:04
Speaker
They don't actually have them lose. They haven't just be heard befuddled by everything going on. I also like they didn't draw us out too much. Some 2000 show, they would have done all that nonsense before they handshake and just pop it into the ring like three or four more times. They would have really stretched it out. Yeah. Yeah. I think as a whole, they got the good length on that one.
00:37:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is just a trick by Chavo. It's not an actual match. Right. But it is. It is quite funny. And it makes sense in context of his storyline with Eddie that he's trying to get Eddie off guard by making Eddie think that he's going to be weaker for his match than he actually is. So it's actually a clever bit of planning, not just a weird crazy person trick. Exactly. So our fourth match.
00:37:49
Speaker
is Eddie Guerrero versus Chavo Guerrero Jr. in a hair versus hair match. Referee is Charles Robinson, because I guess Scott Dickinson was also exhausted after that epic. I wonder if you get paid the same amount per match, like for that. I hope so. Scott Dickinson made out, made out like a bandit on this one then. He's like, I don't know what to tell you guys. I write for a whole match. I don't know whether you're going to. Yeah, yeah. A ticked off Eddie Guerrero gets in the ring and shouts at Chavo, but Chavo just mocks him.
00:38:19
Speaker
get a strange start as Chavo dominates, annoys Eddie with silly dancing, and repeatedly bites Eddie in the buttocks, to the amusement of many small children in the audience. It got a good reaction to the crowd, to be fair. Yeah, mostly from kids, though. Oh, sure, yeah. Eddie finally sneaks in a drop kick to Chavo's knee on a corner break and beats the crap out of Chavo, with drop kicks, a suplex, dives, and a barricade smash, and a guy in the crowd taunts Eddie, showing off his very Ricky Morton-esque mullet. Oh, yeah.
00:38:49
Speaker
Hienan notes that the two are close in age, but Eddie is far more experienced, and Tony nicely uses that to segue into talking about world champion Goldberg, saying, some guys just learn fast. Eddie puts on his dad's gory special.
00:39:03
Speaker
Chavo breaks free, but Eddie lariats him flat. Chavo takes back over with a head scissor takeover and a monkey flip that sends Eddie legs first into the ropes. Eddie dodges a Chavo springboard dive into the ring. Chavo lands hard, but rolls through and tilts to whirl backbreakers Eddie, but then sells his own back. Eddie sends him outside and beats him up, exposing the concrete, but Chavo reverses a suplex for his own onto the concrete.
00:39:28
Speaker
Back in and Eddie's superplex leaves both men down for seven. Chavo slams Eddie and tries Eddie's frog splash but Eddie gets his knees up and hits Chavo's own tornado DDT. Eddie goes for the scissors but Robinson won't let him cut since he hasn't, you know, actually won. Chavo dodges the frog splash and hits the tornado DDT but he goes for the scissors.
00:39:51
Speaker
Robinson stops him too, and nearly gets scissors in his face for his trouble when he's pulling Chavo's arm back. That was scary. Speaking of scary, Eddie rolls Chavo up while the scissors are still in Chavo's hand for the three count and the win. Minor miracle that nothing went wrong there.
00:40:11
Speaker
Chavo goes to cut Eddie's hair anyway, but Robinson won't let him. Robinson takes the scissors and retrieves some clippers from ringside, giving them to Eddie. Eddie taunts Chavo as Robinson sets up the chair. Chavo steals the clippers and tells Eddie to sit down. Eddie, correctly, notes that Chavo lost, not him.
00:40:30
Speaker
Chavo lunges for Eddie, but Eddie shoves him away, so Chavo suddenly starts shaving his own hair. Chavo yells at Eddie, variously asking Eddie to shave Chavo's hair or saying that they should match, and Eddie looks freaked out and retreats. Chavo calls him a wacko. Chavo gets his super soaker, shaves his head and one armpit, and takes drinks from the soaker before using it to spray hairs away. Robinson gives some pointers as he works.
00:40:57
Speaker
All told, it is one of the safer shaves after a hair versus hair match that I've ever seen since the guy's doing it himself. That's true, yeah. He does miss large patches though. Yeah, it was only finished at the back. Yeah, proclaiming he likes the look, he heads backstage where I do imagine he quickly asked Eddie for help finishing the job properly so he wouldn't look ridiculous at the airport.
00:41:17
Speaker
You don't want to look like, say, John Tenta. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. John Tenta with his, his half of his hair and half his mustache. Especially if you're not as big as John Tenta. That's true. People are going to look at you funny. They're not going to say a word to you. Yes. If you don't tend to. Thoughts on this one. That is a really strong match. Great example of what you get when you have two guys that know each other. Literally I wrote film familiarity and obviously that's very literal in this case. Yes.
00:41:46
Speaker
But yeah, there's nice little bits throughout the match where they build off previous matches or previously things to them. Like, again, they'd be trying their own finishers on, which is nice. Yeah, I like that bit. The bit where Eddie tries to use a brain buster on the floor, that's a callback to the attack that happened on thunder. Oh, okay. He's beating up top after the failed trap, quote unquote, goes awry. And he pulls the match down and knocks him out. That's why he's able to knock him out and cut the hair. Gotcha. Okay.
00:42:15
Speaker
So Chavo was ready for that spot because he's had that by a week ago. Good build from previous story then, that's nice. There's other things too, like you see where the timing is so key. Like when Chavo sits up from the sprock splash instead of say rolling away, because the timing of that is very important. Yes. You're a few seconds late, he's coming down on your head. You're too early then, you know, you have a Saturn bit where he still jumps even though you see you're not there anymore.
00:42:41
Speaker
You sit up late, you're Randy Savage on Kevin Nash's elbow drop from a few shows ago. Yeah. Or the, um, I forget the name night stalker, night stalker, I think versus Vader where he sits up and gets a head full of Vader. Yes. No one wins in that scenario.
00:42:57
Speaker
So originally we watched method view. I didn't like the intro part as much. I thought it was a weird distraction. And then they had a regular match, but looking at it more fully with the buildup, I think it kind of works to your point. It does really played a one part of the demo, but I think as a whole, people will really get into the idea that Chavo is misdirecting Eddie, and he's so ready and so angry at him ready. And he's carrying them. He's, you know, dotting out the way he's doing making them get mad and kick the corner. Are you doing a little dance and everything?
00:43:25
Speaker
I think because it's only an intro and then they work a straight match, I have no problem with it. My only real problem with it, I think, is the butt biting. That goes a little bit weird, a little bit far, I think, for the weirdness factor, like the little funny dancing. Honestly, even if he did like biting somewhere else, maybe, but the fighting is just weird. It kind of works, though, for me, because he's yelling at the ref and he's like, each time I had the rev look at and they're like, I'm not looking at that. Yeah. Rob Robinson's reaction does does sell quite well. Yeah.
00:43:52
Speaker
Well, on the speed that he can do that little run on his knees. He is great. I have never seen anyone able to do this. Yeah, it's like I said, it's not he's not crawling on his knees. He is running on his knees somehow. I don't know how he does it. It's amazing. Yeah. It's like he's got roller skates on his knees.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, you can't lift your legs up that much from that position. He must make a lot of really quick, short steps, but so quickly, it's a matter of seconds he gets to the corner. He's so fast. It's incredible. Yeah.
00:44:24
Speaker
The finish is interesting situation because I think as a whole, it works because Chavo is not beaten clean and humiliated by Eddie. It's a case of where him being crazy, essentially an over anxious does hurt him because he tries what Eddie tried to him do with him with scissors and Eddie get having five times in my experiences that he rested for 10 years. Chavo for two is able to turn that around on him.
00:44:49
Speaker
So that leaves you more room to do stuff with the pair as well. I think in this case, I don't mind that kind of finish rather than a clean finish or a more straightforward finish. Yeah, for me, there was a bit too much comedy stalling to start. But once this got going, it was a nice, intense battle between family that did a good job of building up how well the two knew each other, especially with Chavo countering some of Eddie's usual tricks.
00:45:14
Speaker
The ending was a little weird to me. I would kind of get them both going for the scissors mid-match, like as a demoralizing taunt if they've stunned the guy but don't feel they've got the win yet. But both guys instead do it when they have actually just hit a finisher. In both cases, Chavos. They could just go for the pin and win. Slightly odd ending aside though, this was a lot of fun once it got going and the crowd was clearly enjoying the early comedy bits.
00:45:42
Speaker
I don't necessarily mind that aspect of Benji do, I think, because it goes Eddie doing it, even though he does him with a big move, he may be more interested in humiliating Chavo and then beating him, you know, an extra sort of extra dash of salt, I guess you could say. And Chavo's is a response. If they'd reversed that somehow, they were like a Chavo tries it and then stopped. First, I wouldn't like that as much.
00:46:05
Speaker
I think I would actually like it more if only Chavo did it. Because it would fit the Chavo is a little bit kooky gimmick. Because clearly, well, the bit was Stevie Ray was a plot. Clearly from some of his other behavior, he is a little bit bonkers. So I don't think I would have so much of a problem with it if he does it. But Eddie is the wily tactician.
00:46:28
Speaker
Like I said, it would make sense to me if he had hit something other than a finisher. If the message here is he genuinely doesn't think he can win the match here, but he recognizes Chavo's out. So he's trying to demoralize him for the next five minutes of the match that he thinks is going on. But he's just hit a finisher. Just pin the guy. For me, it was it's like the thing we criticize so much where it's like, oh, I hit a finisher. Now I'm going to pin the guy for two and pull him up to beat him up or no, just pin the guy, then beat him up more.
00:46:56
Speaker
If you win this match, you get to cut chavo's hair right. It's something I was briefly discussed the logistics of what happened if they actually. Cut any hair. It's presumably if you cut any part of their hair before that you actually won. That's a disqualification right. I would say so yeah okay like in a mask versus mask match.
00:47:17
Speaker
You're not allowed to take the mask off until the until you've won the match, right? Like I think I think actually standard lucha rules are if you de-mask your opponent, that's a DQ. Correct. Yeah. So that's kind of a gray or use that example necessarily. But yeah, I get the idea. But I mean, that's yeah, like you are going for the reward of the match before you've won the match. I'm I would say I would DQ you. That would would definitely be a more demoralizing finish. Chavo like cuts the step off of his hair. He's disqualified and it's got to sit there and have his head shaved. Yeah.
00:47:46
Speaker
He went, boy, my plan backfired. He played the Kirby enthusiasm music or something. Yeah, I think overall, I quite liked this match. I just, I could do with a little bit less of the intro section. But again, once, once they get to the straight up fighting, they did an amazing job with this. I agree with that.
00:48:08
Speaker
In the falling bits, Eddie would sort of take a slightly softer turn in that he started to feel a little bad when he realized how crazy Chavo is. So it would lead to a bit where Stevie Ray started to beat him up and Eddie would come out to help him.
00:48:23
Speaker
Now, unfortunately, we don't get too much more of this because I think it's shortly after Road Wild, Eddie gets in the backstage position with Eric Bischoff complaining about a bunch of gripes and grievances people in the lower card have about whether it's pay or TV time, promo time, etc.
00:48:40
Speaker
And depending on who you ask and when you ask, either if Bischoff threw coffee on him or accidentally spilled coffee on him, that led to a brief bit where Eddie's trying to do these like shoot promos about fire me, but then he actually does just leave for a few months until they start the LBO thing. Oh, okay. Yeah, so unfortunately, you don't get like another follow up Eddie Chava match from this.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's a shame because it is kind of developing the angle in interesting ways. Yeah. You know, with Eddie still being Eddie, but having a little bit more sympathy for Chavo because he's like, oh, maybe I went too far. My God, what have I done? Yeah. Yeah. I could see that going some interesting ways potentially in a continuing angle. So it's a bit of a shame that we don't get that really. Absolutely.
00:49:26
Speaker
Tony and Tine talk up the situation between Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko, with Malenko snapping after Jericho's taunts and getting suspended. Heaton builds up how much Jericho has done to try to duck Malenko, including going to Congress and the White House. It's time for the next match, which is not something with either guy they just discussed.
00:49:51
Speaker
Our fifth match is Disco Inferno with Alex Wright versus Conan with Lex Luger and Kevin Nash. Referee for this one is Billy Silverman. I honestly don't know why this match is happening at all. The last time I see Conan is on the go home thunder. Mind you, I'll watch the thunder at this point, but still.
00:50:11
Speaker
There's a single match between Stevie Ray and Conan. Stevie Ray is part of his torch I'll get into. Loses match to be the qualification and takes out Conan with the chair shot to the head. So of course Conan's going to fight disco. I mean, Stevie Ray is busy. He had, he had that epic match. I mean, there's no way you could ask Stevie to have another match tonight after, after that. Yeah. Obviously knowing what's happened later, I guess you couldn't work anything with Stevie Ray and Conan and I don't think they're planning to anyways, but it's weird to have him take him out of the chair shot and they go, Oh well.
00:50:41
Speaker
What's for lunch? You know, my personal headcanon for this match is that it was supposed to be Conan versus Stevie Ray, but Stevie Ray was busy killing Chavo Guerrero backstage. So like Stevie, it's time for a match. He was like, I'm busy. Get someone else. Fair enough. And obviously the best choice was disco Inferno. OK, sure. I mean, Alex Wright was right there. Yeah, very true. No, but he was he was right to there. Yeah.
00:51:11
Speaker
Disco now resides in Funkytown, apparently. He dances in wearing a rather nice shiny shirt. I do like how they show his entrance superimposed on a disco ball that is a nice little touch to his entrance. Yeah. Wright does some dancing, too. You mentioned you were confused as to why this match was happening. So are the announcers. Tony eventually says this is a bonus matchup and special added match. Yeah.
00:51:38
Speaker
But he sounds very flustered when Disco's music starts up, at first. Yeah. In 2000 they go, this isn't on the plan, or on the script, or... This may be a case where it legitimately wasn't... Well, this is on the program, that's what we're looking for, yeah. That's not on the program. Alex Wright grabs a microphone and intros the two in German. Disco and Alex do Konyan's normal introduction spiel to booze, and Disco says he's not sure what all that means. Tony admits he doesn't either. Aww.
00:52:04
Speaker
The crowd's probably there to see him in right dance, though, so Disco calls for his music. But instead, end up your Wolfpack theme count, won. Conan enters, followed by Luger and Nash. Disco and Right escape the ring, as Nash and Conan run through their usual intro-speals. Nash and Luger go to ringside, and Disco comes in, and it's time for the actual match at last.
00:52:30
Speaker
Konan easily demolishes Disco with strikes and throws and earns two with a sunset flip after Disco tries to punch free but pauses to dance. Konan facebuster enrolling Lariat, but Disco punches free of the cradle DDT and throws Konan out for right to sneak in some strikes. Luger, though, taps right on the shoulder, ducks a punch, and muscles him into the torture rack.
00:52:51
Speaker
He has a little more trouble with that than I expected, but I think it's because Wright is like overselling, wriggling around. Yeah. It's actually kind of neat because it's, it's Luger legitimately wrestling him into position for it. That's true. Yeah. Like the guy is not really cooperating, but Luger can still do it. But normally, yeah, he just sort of leans over and they like lift them up right into it. Yeah.
00:53:09
Speaker
While Silverman checks on that, Nash hits the jackknife powerbomb on disco, and as Silverman returns, Conan locks on the tequila sunrise for the submission win. End up you a Wolfpack theme count, too. Tine jokes that we saw the Wolfpack hat trick with all three of the guy's finishers. Tony points out Antoine Carr, Carl Malone's teammate on the Utah Jazz, cheering at ringside.
00:53:34
Speaker
He says, several other basketball greats are also attending, but I don't recall us ever getting a shot of any of them. Thoughts on this one? It's pretty nothing affair. I mean, Conan basically does his spots, gets countered, and then they go right to the finish where the faces, the popular, everyone loves them at this point anyways, Wolfpack faces cheat to win. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, in their defense, they cheat after the other side cheats, but still, you know.
00:54:01
Speaker
So this finish relies on Billy Silverman being so distracted by what's happening outside. He doesn't notice Nash go into the ring, hit his big boot, and then the jackknife, and then go over the top rope as slowly as Nash always does. He doesn't notice one of the largest men in the universe, you know, sneaking into the ring. Yeah. Because stealth would not be possible for you at that size. No. And two very loud crashes. Yeah.
00:54:28
Speaker
The other thing I noticed especially on rewatch is that disco rolls over onto his stomach after the bumps were to sell it. So Conan goes to put his hold on him. Conan rolls him back over into his back to roll him into his submission. Even though he could just grab his arm and leg while he's there. He's like, I have a very specific way of putting this on. Conan's OCD is just so overpowering.
00:54:51
Speaker
It's what would happen at the video game, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You'd bring it back and it would typically have you rolling back over and then roll back again. Yes, definitely. Didn't think to program the animation another way. Yeah. No. So there's nothing in the match I could talk about. The thing I found funny is that Disco comes out and talks. Alex Wright does his bit and talks in German. Then you have Nash and Conan talks. And Luca is also there. Yeah.
00:55:17
Speaker
But nothing to say, you just don't, you don't pay, I pay Luger speaks with his actions. Oh, okay. And his Luger selling. That's true, yeah. It's almost a shame he didn't Luger sell from like the incidental conduct that Alex Wright's doing. Like, whoa, whoa. Yeah. Genuinely, if you want some, some absolute comedy gold, watch Luger's expression while he's muscling him up there, he gets this, this look on like, come on, dude, stop trickling around. Yeah. That's enough.
00:55:46
Speaker
The other thing I noticed is the absence of Sting. Oh, right. He's with the Wolfpack now, isn't he? Yeah. I mean, I've had to watch like three Wolfpack squash matches. I tell they really do on the show at this point. I'm kind of glad Sting isn't on the show. I like to pretend that that period of Sting's career does not exist when he actually joins an NWO faction. It's like, we've been over that. I won't give it. Yeah. My rant again. No, no, no tomato Sting. Sadly tonight.
00:56:15
Speaker
This was a short match that really just seems to be there to get the Wolfpack on the show. Considering the importance of the Wolfpack versus Hollywood angle to WSW's 1998 and the big audience, the WSW drew for the show, you'd really think they would have done more with these guys tonight, but apparently not. Yeah, it's very strange.
00:56:31
Speaker
It's notable only for Odisco's anti-character growth, where he's apparently unlearned any lessons that he learned from the match against Malenko on the 1996 show, and now he just dances and loses. This was performed just fine, but it should have been on Nitro, not on pay-per-view. There's nothing to it. Exactly, yeah. Oh crap, we forgot to put the wolf pack on the show. I guess we better do something.
00:56:53
Speaker
What speaks to what's going on with the story, I mean, there's no story going on with the Wolfpack in Hollywood that warrants a pay-free match of Paris. Which is weird because that's like, there are two focal angles for 1998. One is Goldberg's rise and the other is NWO versus Wolfpack. And I do remember that was our, one of our major problems is Starrcade 1998 as well.
00:57:15
Speaker
this whole Wolfpack versus Hollywood thing, I recall being barely involved with that show as well. Biggest angle of the year. And you're like, uh, I guess we'll just not really do anything about it. It's very strange that like if you're on paper, you read that that's the most important part of the story or one of the main stories. But yeah, on TV is not. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:36
Speaker
Disco would team up with Alex Wright on the next show against the public enemy, who instantly he's actually feuding with during all this. They're fighting on Nitros and Thunders building up to this show where he fights Conan. This also introduces Tokyo Magnum. It was a tag team match where he's out with his actual Japanese partner, but he likes the music. So he pops into the middle when the two are dancing to join them. They don't like it in its whole thing.
00:58:04
Speaker
So yeah, there's more about Public Enemy and Alex Wright Disco than Conan. Okay. Very strange. Our sixth match is The Giant versus Kevin Green in a special challenge match.
Kevin Green's Wrestling Highlights
00:58:19
Speaker
Referee for this one is Nick Patrick. This is the first of two matches with a pretty notable change to them at the very, very last minute.
00:58:28
Speaker
So after the Grand American Bash, Hennig Garoud, who are now part of the, and they have black and white, they would challenge Goldberg, who at this point is, has his big undefeated streak, and of course he's US champion. They, you know, say that he has weaknesses that Hennig knows because he's so experienced. So interesting bit where they say he's won like five or six world titles. I guess they mean the AWA world titles, cause I can't think of other ones. Yeah, he was AWA world champ, right? So it's a question of whether you, whether anyone counts that.
00:58:56
Speaker
At certain points in history, but you know, I'm not good. I'm less surprised that WSW counts it than if the WWF did. True. Like the WWF is really aggressive about saying any other promotions other than us are not legitimate. Yeah. Even WSW at times, where WSW, especially in like a few years ago when they were doing the Hall of Fame shows, has a healthy respect for wrestling history. Yeah. It doesn't really surprise me if they regard the AWA world title as legit world title. Fair enough.
00:59:26
Speaker
On the same show as well, Kevin Green is visiting as he, obviously he's been on the show a number of times. He'd be attacked by the giant who's also part of the individual Hollywood.
00:59:36
Speaker
Interestingly, this would lead to Kevin Green wrestling his only non pay-per-view match. He'd wrestle on Nitro and one of the big matches against the giant. I bet he can guess how it ends. Jokelamp? Disqualification. Disqualification, okay. It's a 1998 Nitro buff. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Yeah. I've let myself down. Go where we come and make the save, that's setting up a tag team match.
01:00:01
Speaker
However, two thunders back, I'll teach you the one come out announced that the number of container for the world title is now Goldberg, which to, to be fair, not getting into the whole is us champion of contender by default thing, which they never can agree on. Goldberg at this point is I think 104 and no, or 103 and 404. No. So undefeated and champion. I mean, that makes perfect sense.
01:00:23
Speaker
Yeah, you have the title that's normally or often on used as you're the number one contender and you have an ungodly winning streak going on. If they didn't declare you number one contender, it would be very weird. Yes. My only issue as we'll talk about is the timing of this.
01:00:40
Speaker
So this leads to the go home nitro, the big Georgia dump show where Hogan says, Oh, I'm not going to defend the title, even though J.J. Dillon states to be obligated to. So I don't know how that works. He's just going to leave and I don't know.
01:00:54
Speaker
He says he's got to beat one of his NWO brothers, trying to be Scott Hall. So Goldberg beats Scott Hall in a match to get his title shot and then beats Hulk Hogan in the main event of that nitro, winning the world title and eventually abdicating the US title.
01:01:12
Speaker
Yes. Which does, in fairness to them, as I recall, do mondo TV numbers. It does, yes. That's kind of WW's focus at this point, and to be fair, probably somewhat WW's focus as well, beating each other in the TV ratings and going back and forth. They make this play for TV ratings. They do not make the right play for a pay-per-view.
01:01:35
Speaker
No, but they make the right play for TV rings. And also in fairness, this pay per view gets a huge buy rate still. So as you noted, there's a problem of timing with this. I think in the long run, it would probably have been better for them to do this on a big show. But I guess in the moment, you know, you can go either way on their strategy.
01:01:59
Speaker
So anyways, so that after that happens on the go home thunder, we get a brief ever did a deal. It comes and talks to the camera. He like just apparently just left the board meeting. He said that Gober was not required to drop his tag team match, get up for the show. But because her headache off camera challenged him to a title match for the end of the world, he went to be a fighting champion.
01:02:22
Speaker
So he's going to fight Henig and apparently also of Canberra, Kevin Green said, Oh, I'm fine with that. Cause the giants, the guy I want to fight anyways. It's weird. They don't have them say it or Henig make the challenge. But yeah, that's how we get here. That's a plan abrupt turn right before leading to a random signals match featuring a football player who to be fair has wrestled, I think three matches that before. So it's not, he's not Rodman. Yes. There's always a plus.
01:02:51
Speaker
NWO theme count, one. It begins. Heenan jokes that the Giant puts on more pounds than Goldberg puts on wins. Giant actually looks quite good today, I think. Carolina Panthers football player Kevin Green enters wearing an All-Pro shirt and football eye black just in case you had any doubt what his actual career was. A fan shows off a Carolina Panthers banner.
01:03:18
Speaker
Tine notes that Giant is 9 inches taller and over 160 pounds heavier than the biggest man that Green faces in football. Green dodges around and slaps Giant, but Giant roars, so Green gets the heck out of there. Giant chases, but Green punts the top rope into his crotch.
01:03:35
Speaker
Greenland's charging strikes, but an annoyed Giant catches and slams him, then beats him up, tearing at his wonderful hair. Hienan jokes it's time for the Halftime Report, and Tony quips, yeah, half of Kevin Green there and half of Kevin Green here. It's a good line, yeah. Tine reminds us that Giant, like Goldberg, had a fast rise. Faster, in fact. Giant won the world title in his first match with WSW in his only second match ever. That's true, yeah.
01:04:02
Speaker
Giant shrugs off Green's attempts at comebacks, but Green stuns him with some barricade and ringpost rams. A nice green diving forearm floors Giant for two, and he works the leg with a three-point stance charge and kicks, but on another charge, Giant grabs him and chokeslams him with great hang time for the three count and the win. NWO theme count, two.
01:04:27
Speaker
Giant gives the camera a good glare as he leaves, and Green sells like an absolute champ, as Patrick checks on him. Thoughts on this?
01:04:36
Speaker
So this is a fairly basic match, but it's kind of what you'd expect. Given that it's Kevin green, again, it's only his fifth match. And it's a giant who it's weird that I think the giants of veteran and his situation, but I mean, obviously he has, he's wrestling for about three years at this point, a little two and a half years. Yeah. He's at the point in his career where he can handle to some extent, at least a match with a less experienced guy. And especially giants just, he is good.
01:05:00
Speaker
Like I said, it's all basic stuff. It slams and punches and pushes. There's nice little flourishes with green doing his football stuff in there. And his diving form into the ring is really nice. It's weird, the Paris in this way, but it reminds me a lot of A.J. Styles' springboard one he would do. Yeah, yeah. It's phenomenal for him. Yeah, he has this little snap at the end of it. Exactly, yeah. It's funny that that befuddles the commentators. I don't know what to call it. Yeah, Tene calls it a clothesline. Tony's like, I think it was more of a forearm. Tene's like, it's a combination.
01:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think they're used to people just doing flying clothesline. They're like, wait, what's the thing at the end? Yeah. Did you ever expect that the guy who would do a move that would confuse Mike Tenet would be Kevin Green? That is surprising.
01:05:43
Speaker
I think my only real issue with the match other than the general simplicity which is to be expected given who's involved is that I think the finish felt very abrupt to me. I think the way it's executed, the actual choke slam is fine. I kind of wish he had done something other than just basically put his hand out and caught him as he ran at him. Like maybe he misses a corner dive and he grabbed him out of that or he goes up top again and you grab him or something.
01:06:08
Speaker
I get that, absolutely. Kevin Green's not a regular performer there, so it's less of a protecting him, and he's fine, loses the wrestling match, and Giant's a big force you're keeping strong, but it's a very demoralizing victory for Green if you think about it, because he's fighting and fighting, and then he just runs and gets immediately grabbed and slammed down and loses. It's to the Giant, so there's no shame in losing to the Giant, obviously, but I would have done differently, I guess I'd say.
01:06:32
Speaker
It is almost identical to the ending of the Sid Vicious and Sting match on Road Wild 1999. You know, I did remind you of that, yes. Yeah. I still maintain Sid should have caught him during the move and walked out with him, but yes. Which Jayant basically does. Yeah. The Sting one is because he stops Sting and then does the regular chokes. And I meant like Hell's Sting in the air, but yes. Yeah. We weren't discussing that match before.
01:07:00
Speaker
This was a much better match than I was expecting, considering it's between a football player and a wrestler who, well, very good, is only in his third year of his career. Whoever put this together did a terrific job. Yeah. There's a good plot throughout. Green had a clear strategy throughout the match and loses mostly because he's misread how weakened Giant actually is. That's fair. So for me, it's a good rookie era storyline. OK.
01:07:23
Speaker
And honestly, Green is quite fun to watch. Based on this and his Slambry 1997 performance, I would not have minded seeing him as a full-time wrestler. He always has a lot of energy and he just seems willing to do what he needs to do for the match at all times. One of the better choke slams I've ever seen in a giant match too. He goes up for it really well.
01:07:44
Speaker
So this was a fun watch. I actually I think I like the ending the way it's done. I think it it comes off very sudden. It feels angle wise like Green thinks he's got a giant weaker than he does. He thinks, oh, I finally finally nailed him. I can finally get sustained offense in. And that's when giants like, nope. Yeah. Yeah. I don't hate the finish at all. I just yeah. For me, I would like it was more of a of a counter or escaping a move. And then which again, I think we still play into the that aspect. Yeah.
01:08:13
Speaker
It's not a bad finish. It's just not the one I said I would have booked if I was booking a wrestling match. I really wonder, things are different if we've gotten the Goldberg and Green versus Giant Heading match, what that would have been like. Yeah. I always wonder what that was like.
01:08:29
Speaker
There's definitely some interesting double spots that you could see happening with Goldberg and Green both being football guys. Goldberg obviously no longer, but he originally was. And then I think Henig would be a good guy to hold the match together, be kind of the glue with his greater experience.
01:08:46
Speaker
one of Kevin Green's interview segments, they bring up that one of the few years that Goldberg did play football, he actually did play in the same team with Kevin Green as a rookie. Oh, really? They actually were roommates for that one season. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So again, it's neat dynamic. And then we lose that because they hotshot the title. Yes.
01:09:05
Speaker
Honestly, it would have been weird, but maybe interesting if you actually did still do the tag match, but then also have a Goldberg versus Kurt Hennig match for the title. Just have both of them say, yeah, we can wrestle twice. Yeah. Hennig totally good. And Goldberg, I mean, he does actually demonstrate when they put him in longer matches that he does have good stamina, which
Goldberg's Storytelling Critique
01:09:25
Speaker
makes sense. He's a football guy. I mean, they have to.
01:09:28
Speaker
Yeah. The only counter I guess to my own argument of canceling the tag match is that in a way is a good storytelling for Goldberg. I wish, I wish he would set this again. Just having someone telling me said it's not the same as him saying, right? Yes. The story here is that Goldberg is now champion. He's not going to take a non-title tag match on the show, right? Which is literally what Hogan was going to do up until that nitro. Yes.
01:09:52
Speaker
Goldberg had said, you know, I'm not afraid of a challenge. I'm not going to hide in tag match like Hogan or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been nice. That would have really pushed the story further, but it's just you don't say, oh, we changed the match. He's fine with it. And it'd be nice if we had like, if we couldn't get that match at this show, it would be cool if we could have gotten that match at some point. Yeah. Like do that on road wild 1998 instead of these stupid battle royale that that went nowhere. Yeah. Even just do on the next nature or something. Yeah. It's too intriguing of a match to lose. Exactly. Yeah.
01:10:24
Speaker
Interestingly, this is actually Kevin Green's last wrestling match. We saw him before, I think he was playing for the Panthers. They didn't have a problem with him wrestling, so he rested a couple of matches around that time. He went to a different team that next season. 49ers, I think. I believe so, yes. And they put a thing of contract saying you couldn't wrestle during the season. Because there's always a line and commentary in the match that he's getting ready for training camp, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So this is interfering with the actual season, which makes sense.
01:10:51
Speaker
When he came back to the Panthers, which he's at now, they also put that in the contract. So that's where the kibosh on things. Now, interestingly, Green actually retired after the 1999 season for football entirely. He said he would rather retire on top than try to keep going. Fair play to him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's a very accomplished football player he was. Yeah. So it's actually kind of surprising that this is his last match. Surprised they didn't get him back during 2000. Maybe he looked at WSW 2000 and was like, no, thank you, sir.
01:11:20
Speaker
It is very possible if you read Rick Flair's book and how much he hated the company at the time, that maybe that did come up and Flair was like, don't do not. You don't want to be here, buddy. You do not want to be here. Yeah. Vince Roos is going to turn you heel or do something stupid with you, so don't do it. I'll have you attacked by an actual panther. Yeah. I'm not going to ask Flair that. I can't ask him to read that, so I don't know. It's all theoretical.
01:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, all told, if this had to be his last match, I think it's a good match to go out on. A nice, solid performance that proved that, hey, even though I'm a football guy, I can hang as an actual wrestler in a well-plotted match and I can follow a match storyline.
01:12:00
Speaker
I think Kevin Green comes off in general, in his appearances, comes off far better than a lot of the other celebrity or athletics. 100% guys that we see in WCW are really anywhere in wrestling. He's one of the best ones that comes in, I think. Hard to argue with that, honestly. As for the Giant, as we've referenced a couple of times, Giant went up in a big battle Royal at Road Wild. Yep. The only guy other than Goldberg, I think that comes out of that looking even remotely good. Yeah.
01:12:33
Speaker
We cut to the internet table again, where Lee Marshall is with Kurt Hennig. He's so-called unbeatable guys, but today, Bachelor of the Beach, it's you and Goldberg for the big strap, an unbeaten man, and what an opportunity for you to get back into the winner's circle today. Well, you know, if you think back, Lee, I'm the one who made the issue the challenge out to Goldberg before he was WCW World Champion. I made that challenge to him because I know, I have the secret, I know what it takes to beat Goldberg.
01:13:04
Speaker
What is it? It's 17 years experience. It's knowing the ring inside and out. It's knowing when to do things, how to do them, and where to do them. All right, you've obviously... Experience is what I'm talking about. Does he have a weakness, though? Of course he has a weakness in it. Inexperience. And his other weakness is... What's here? The lungs. I'm the guy that can go all night. All I gotta do is wear Goldberg down.
01:13:31
Speaker
Still kind of a shortcut in and out here, but I'm glad this segment was much more relevant than the last internet chat segment. Yes. Henik makes some good points about his experience relative to Goldberg, but it's just getting to the most interesting part, his tactic of making the match last so that Goldberg will tire when we cut away. Yeah. I guess that is a good argument for going to find the full internet chat to hear the full comment, but it would have been nice to have a little more of this one on the actual show. Yeah.
01:13:58
Speaker
I do like Lee's kind of surprised laugh when he says lungs. Yeah. Because what's happening there, obviously this is an audio show, so you can't see it. What's happening there is Henig has tapped his chest the way that you would when you're saying you got to have heart. Yeah. So when he says lungs, Lee is just like kind of a, wait, what? Yeah. That wasn't what I expected you to say, but it makes sense. Like in his explanation, what he's going for. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
01:14:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely good that they pick this either this time to cut to or this time. I don't know if this is actually live or that they cut at the right time. It seems unlikely, even their track record, that they cut just the right time to him talking about it. But yeah, it's probably pretty tape, which is fine. They do a much better job of making this part correspond to something that's actually going to happen on a show, probably because they actually have a plan for this one. Yeah, that's true. Or the other one as we've established kind of just came out of nothing. It exists. Yeah.
01:14:57
Speaker
Hold on here JJ does not need to be in the middle of this thing You both have been put on written notice
01:15:06
Speaker
that there is to be no physical contact between either of you prior to Bastion the Beach on Sunday.
Malenko vs. Jericho Escalation
01:15:13
Speaker
And if either of you makes a move and touches the other, immediate disqualification from Bastion the Beach. We both grew up without our father's guidance. We both grew up with our fathers on the road, missing him just as your young daughter misses you while you're on the road, Dean. And think about your dad, think about how lonely he must have been.
01:15:36
Speaker
Every night in a different city, every night in a different hotel, he must have craved human companionship. And think about how hard it must have been for your mother. And have you ever wondered why you and your brother look absolutely nothing alike? That's enough, that's enough. He snapped, he snapped. And do you blame him at all? I was snapped before. And let's not pull him off, turn him loose. You're not kidding, turn him loose.
01:16:05
Speaker
We cut to a video package covering the Malenko Jericho feud that gives a pretty good coverage of the escalating tensions, including Jericho insulting Malenko's recently departed father and getting slugged full in the face.
01:16:17
Speaker
I really hope that Malenko was okay with his dad's memory being part of this storyline. Yeah. It's definitely not the sort of thing you do without the family is okay. No, no. That said, I do love how Jericho builds to that. It starts out in like a really sympathetic tone. Yeah. I'm trying to make a general, genuine connection with you. That's true. Yeah. And then it's just like, you start getting this like, wait, where's this going midway through? Yeah. So he does it very well, but I just, I really hope that they had prior discussed this and said what they were going to say. Cause I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah.
01:16:46
Speaker
Given the how long the two work before and after. Yeah, they seem to have a good relationship overall. So I imagine that was not a surprise. Yeah, absolutely. Malenko even later attacks again and rips out chunks of Jericho's hair. I'm wondering if that's a reference to the backstage fight in 1997 between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.
01:17:07
Speaker
You know, I didn't even think of that, but that might be. Yeah. Yeah, because I believe Jim Cornette described as Brett having ripped out a squirrel sized chunk of Shawn Michaels hair. Yes, I believe that's the case. Yeah, that's that's mid 97. I believe I'm a timelines right on that one. That would have been in the past. I could see that. Yeah. I'm hoping those were actually hair extensions or something, not.
01:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think he's I'm sure he's fine. Yeah. It's a little weird, Dylan, that can't quite get the explanation out quickly enough. Yeah. We disqualified from the match. Yeah. Immediate disqualification at Mash of the Beach. Yeah. I get what he's going for. But yeah, the wording is a little bit weird because they got everything starting to kick off there. Yeah. It's understandable. But yeah, it's a little, little weird mix up there. So better at making this point than Nick Bachwinkle. So.
01:17:57
Speaker
Oh yes, absolutely. He'd still be here now explaining this point if it was Nick Bachman.
01:18:05
Speaker
Jericho remains champion and keeps avoiding Dean Malenko. He finds ways to do it. He tries to escape the match two weeks out in an interesting fashion. He says he's got a strong challenger for his title. Now this guy, he's just come back from injury. You know, I'm legit scared of this guy when we'll take the challenge because I'm a brave fighting champion. Everybody brings out a different mini wrestler wearing a Mysterio mask. Saying that's for Mysterio, he's back from injury. He's going to beat me.
01:18:33
Speaker
Eh. Yeah, so it's obviously a comedy angle bit where he tends to get beaten up. He literally, like he goes to pin fake Mysterio, rolls himself and that guy over. But it's in that weird way we'll see later with Kurt Hennig where he pulls David Flair to pin him. Oh, right. Yeah. But then he goes, Oh, no, I've been beaten. I guess the, I guess for Mysterio is now the number one candidate of the title. I can't fight Dean Malenko, which is the longer part of that promo before the bit they show.
01:18:59
Speaker
Dylan references, you know, that trick he tried on thunder is not going to work. You still got to fight Dean. But then as we saw, he says he's no contact clause. They had previously had a match and Blanco snapped on him and lost via qualification when they tried to turn the new champion. And that's part of the way they extended this feud. Jericho naturally insults Dean Blanco by calling him a bastard and no, no dissenter that. Cause that is the literal actual term he's using. That is true. For once it's not a swear word. It's the actual word.
01:19:29
Speaker
So as we noted from that video package, there's now no match for Jericho. So I'm not sure what he's going to do when he comes out. Overdubbed theme count three. Cruiserweight champ Jericho comes down to the ring with a top hat and cane in hand. Heenan calls him the world's toughest chimney sweep. Jericho gets a microphone.
01:19:55
Speaker
All right, you all know the story. Stinko Malinko, you went and got yourself suspended. So you robbed all the fans of the match tonight. But I would never, ever rob the fans. I told you I was gonna come out here and do a little soft shoe routine. I got my top hat, I got my cane. So I'm gonna break it down for you and do a little soft shoe for you right now.
01:20:24
Speaker
A one, a two, a one, two, three, four. What are you doing out here? Can't you see I'm gonna do a little soft shoot for these people? Sing a little song. What's wrong with you, man? Get a life, JoJo. Look, I just wanted to come out here and to say that maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I misjudged you.
01:20:54
Speaker
And if I was wrong about you, I would be the first one to come out here and publicly say I was wrong. Offer an apology. Let's let bygones be bygones. Well, thank you very much. It's about time. But I just sense that I'm surprised how many fans you really have. I admit it. Millions. Jericho Hollis everywhere.
01:21:20
Speaker
And I sense that a lot of these people came here tonight, and I think there's a little bit of disappointment because they really wanted to see you, not only see you wrestle, but they wanted to see you defend your belt. Yes, they did. I just think they're really disappointed. They are disappointed, but it's Milenko's fault. What can I do, JoJo? I'm here, he's not here. Well, I didn't get a chance to discuss it with you before, but I got on the phone to see if there wasn't somebody I could,
01:21:47
Speaker
find locally that maybe would come down your spur of the moment. And there was one guy that said, I'll come down, very short notice, the thought of being in the ring with you, the champion, pay-per-view audience. Me as a people said he would come down, but I don't know. I mean, it's really up to you. A local guy, an independent jabroni sort of thing? He hasn't wrestled in six months. Hasn't wrestled in six months, and he wants to come in the ring with me for a title shot.
01:22:19
Speaker
Not very experienced young man. Can it still be a no disqualification match?
01:22:25
Speaker
I really want to know this qualification. Well, I mean, this young guy's got to learn a trick or two from the master, from the master. He hasn't wrestled six months. I mean, that might be taken advantage of. I'll tell you what. I'll bring this kid up to a different level. Bring in this jobber right now. Let me do a little match with him. I'll teach him a thing or two. Let's get this thing. Yeah, I'll do it. Sure, I got some time to kill. I think the people want to see me wrestle. That's why they came. Yeah, you're not kidding. We do accept it. Yeah, why not? Chris Jericho equals by rate. All right, then it's official. We'll have a title match. Bring it in.
01:22:56
Speaker
Oh, hey. Hey, if you know that music, we know that music very, very, very well. The music hits. It's Zodiac. Yes. No, just kidding. It's Ray Mysterio Jr. Jericho gives a really great, just shocked expression. I love this segment because you can tell that J.J. Dillon used to be with a horseman. Yeah.
01:23:20
Speaker
He's very clever about his presentation here. If you listen to him, he never outright lies to Jericho at all. He says, you know, he's a local talent, which Mysterio is. He says he hasn't wrestled in six months. When Jericho says independent guy, he doesn't actually say anything. That's where he says, oh, he hasn't wrestled in six months. So he passes off the only point where he would have actually potentially been telling a lie. It's true. Yeah.
01:23:45
Speaker
So he does a really good job of manipulating Jericho, showing that as good of a manipulator as Jericho is, Dylan as a former horseman manager is better. If you can trust anyone, it's Joe Taro Dylan. That was for Garrett. Yeah, Joe Joe's Bizarre Adventure. That would be a very different show with JJ Dylan in it. Yeah.
01:24:06
Speaker
It is funny to Jericho's expression when JJ Dillon interrupts. He's trying to look shocked, but he has just a momentary flash of, oh, thank goodness I didn't actually have to go through with it. Yeah. It's also worth noting that one of the more divisive Jericho moments in recent memories from maybe three years ago, where they legit do a musical number, him and MJF, on Dynamite.
01:24:31
Speaker
It was like some people were like, Oh, it's so funny because it's so subversive and weird. Like they were like, why the hell is the wrestling show? Yeah. This is foreshadowing for the later plans. Jericho never forget something. He'll do it later. So our seventh match is Lionheart Chris Jericho versus Ray Mysterio Jr. in a no disqualification match for Jericho's WSW Cruiserweight Championship. Referee for this is Mark Curtis.
01:24:58
Speaker
The person that Jericho won the title from many months back was Rey Mysterio. And in kayfabe, he attacked him after the match, injured his knee, sending him out of action. So this is a return match for Rey Mysterio. Okay. Yeah. So getting revenge on the guy that kayfabe took him out of action. Correct. It's a legitimate knee surgery. Correct. Right. And they just use that as the excuse. Yeah, exactly.
01:25:21
Speaker
Mysterio is in a primarily red and green outfit, about half a year or two early for that color scheme. It does look cool though. And one knee indeed has a knee brace on it. Jericho attacks with his cane, but Mysterio dodges, and Jericho bounces the cane off the ropes and hits himself in the face. Mysterio rapidly attacks and gets two with a springboard leg drop.
01:25:43
Speaker
Jericho retreats outside, so Mysterio swings around a post and hits a surprise Hurricanrana. It's a bit of an awkward pause in the middle of that move, but it's a cool idea. Yeah, yeah. Back in, Jericho stops himself on a whip and hits a leapfrogging Mysterio with a chopped block to the braced knee, then works the knee with stomps and kicks as Mysterio howls in pain. Mysterio dodges a charge and Jericho spills to the floor, so Jericho retreats to the beach set. Yes! Finally!
01:26:11
Speaker
Jericho climbs the lifeguard stand, but Mysterio throws him onto a sandcastle and punishes Skull Pyramid, knocking a giant beach ball aside in the process, which may be a candidate for one of the weirdest sentences I've ever had to say on
Booker T vs. Bret Hart Drama
01:26:23
Speaker
this show. We haven't got how we have it yet, so... This is true. Give it time. Mysterio knocks an inflatable shark, or I think it might have been a dolphin, off the stand and dives off to Hurricanrana Jericho, hitting his head on the sand in the process. It's softer than the ring post a few years back, at least. That is true, yeah.
01:26:40
Speaker
Mysterio throws sand in Jericho's eyes. Back in, Jericho rolls through a Mysterio crossbody for two. Jericho top rope power slam and he retrieves a chair and nails Mysterio in the knee, but Mysterio dodges a chair assisted knee drop. Mysterio chair shot and chair assisted drop kick to the leg, but Jericho catches a springboard Rana and goes for the lion tamer. Mysterio makes the ropes.
01:27:05
Speaker
The crowd suddenly cheers as Dean Malenko comes down the ramp wearing an awesome t-shirt with an image of his intense eyes. Hennan notes it, so thanks for the help selling merchandise, Hennan. Absolutely. A distracted Jericho nevertheless tries the lion tamer again, but Mysterio flips through his legs and rolls him up for the three count and the win.
01:27:28
Speaker
Malenko chases Jericho, who runs the heck up the ramp and disappears backstage, only to be stopped by Arne Anderson. Malenko catches up and beats the ever-loving crap out of Jericho backstage before we cut back to Mysterio celebrating with his belt. Thoughts on this one?
01:27:45
Speaker
Thought this was a pretty good match. You kind of have to understand that this is Ray's first match back. So a couple of bits where he doesn't quite either get distance or timing. Right. You kind of give a little bit of pass on like, yeah. Yeah. Well, like the haircut run a spot gets counted. He doesn't quite, he's not quite high enough. Like the one leg is not quite positioned, but he's being counted anyway. So again, kind of works. It is sort of funny to see him do the swing around the ring post spot, even go super well, because it kind of weirdly foreshadows a six one nine. Yes.
01:28:15
Speaker
Similar similar theme to it. Yeah back to memory serves. He tries at Russell mania the watch with Tim and orden and Crangle he does a version of that which also doesn't quite land right so maybe maybe avoid swinging around that post
01:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the timing on something like that is so tight. Oh, yeah. What he needs to do is swing around, grab the guy with his legs and continue that same motion. So both guys have to be exactly positioned right and exactly on the fact that it goes as well as it does is amazing. That's very. Yeah. Yeah, the tricky thing with this match is as much as the crowd loves this to you and it's nice to see him back. Absolutely. The match they're building to is Malenko and Jericho.
01:28:57
Speaker
So you get a good match out of this as a whole, but the crowd doesn't get the match that really isn't really expecting. There are definitely, as we've covered in history, far worse replacements for people in wrestling matches. Yes. But it's just kind of a mixed bag. I like that Milinko's interference also doesn't involve actually even getting to the ring with the disqualification thing. And I like that Mysterio does not roll up Jericho while he's distracted. Sure. Jericho is off.
01:29:25
Speaker
But he goes back and is doing a move, so he's involved in the match again when Mysterio counters the move. So he's actually doing a legitimate counter to a move. It doesn't make Mysterio look weak or needing the help necessarily. That's fair. He looks like a legitimate champion who actually won by doing a counter to a move rather than a fluke win.
01:29:48
Speaker
It's a slight misdirection as well because if you're in the crowd and you think, okay, you hear what the match is still known as qualification because it was before with Tim and Mlynko.
01:29:58
Speaker
You're thinking, oh, matter what's going to happen, Link is going to run out and hit Jericho and Rey is going to move and pin him. But I think they recognized, okay, we need Rey to still look good in all of this, and having him look like a fluke champion will not be good. So I think they do this in exactly the right way. If they're going to do this combination of things, they did it just right for that. Absolutely.
01:30:20
Speaker
So, yeah, quite a nice match. I think, like you said, it's it's it's short because we're not quite sure what break and handle to get. It's rusty. Yeah. But they did a very good job and had a lot of intensity to it. Absolutely.
01:30:33
Speaker
So here's the sort of downward bit, the fortune of this. So Jericho has this nickname as the king of loopholes. If you go watch this on the, the network or peacock pinning, which territory you're in the screenshot they use for each episode. It just has a random bit in the episode. They either intentionally or accidentally got a perfect screenshot because it's Jericho reading from a book, presumably the book of rules to day, day Dylan, who was face palming, like full, full Picard main face palming. Nice.
01:31:02
Speaker
That sort of gives you an idea of what's going to happen if you're going through the anomaly. So what happens is, Derek comes out the next night and Nitro brings up the book of rules saying that the title win is null and void because Dean Linko interfered. And if a suspended person interferes in title match, the win is null and void. Gotcha.
01:31:21
Speaker
My issue is that Blanco didn't really interfere. Yeah. Yeah. As we pointed out, he doesn't really... He didn't even know the ring. That would actually work if Milenko had actually made contact with him before the pinfall. Yeah. Or he got on the ring apron. Something more direct than just, hi, I'm here. Oh, you're distracted. Yeah, I agree.
01:31:40
Speaker
So it's funny because we praise how well they did the finish, but then they messed up their finish by storyline. Yeah, it would have been a great opportunity to have Dylan again as the former horseman manager, very aware of loopholes himself and stuff. Just say, no, that's not a loophole. He did not interfere in the match. If he's standing there and you happen to get distracted, too bad.
01:31:59
Speaker
I think if you go back to, I want to say, I think it's arcade 85. They overturned that win for dusty because the horsemen get on the ring apron and try to attack him. And you don't actually hit him. They say, Oh, they interfered and that's the title. I think, yeah, yeah. So Dylan being involved in that scenario would definitely know how the rules in that work. That's true. Yeah.
01:32:19
Speaker
So it's a little shame that they wanted to shame. They undo rabies to your title win and then do it in that way. But it keeps the Jericho Blanco store going. So yeah, I get, I get like you've kind of worked yourself into a bit of a corner here where you want to have the title involved in that storyline. Yeah. And you don't want Malenko to start beating up Ray Mysterio, presumably. So maybe they're also not sure if Ray is ready for full time, but they wanted for that short match and the win in the moment.
01:32:45
Speaker
I think it'd be nice if what they had done was something more like Jericho brings that up, but they end up using it to give him a rematch against Rey Mysterio. Sure. And then Jericho does something absolutely brutal during that match to win the match and get his title back. That'd be fair. Yeah. Don't make it an automatic undo because I don't think it's a strong enough argument that it's automatic undo. But I think it's a strong enough argument to say I get another match against this guy. Right.
01:33:08
Speaker
As a punishment for his quote unquote interference, DeMulinko was kayfabe fired, but in about three weeks he will be unfired but still on sort of on watch because you know he thought that he's done. But also made the referee for the Chris Jericho's title match against Wojcie Guererra. Yes. At Road Wild. Yes.
01:33:25
Speaker
Nick's messaging a bit here, although I guess Dylan doesn't like Jericho, so I see him making that call. He's in favor. He's like, I have to do certain things because of the rules, but I like you a lot better than I like this guy. So I'll do what I can.
01:33:39
Speaker
Meanwhile, Mr. Year is also wrestling the world, as you recall, he wrestled psychosis, they matched to become number contender, which isn't he already? Or I guess because his winds of return, he's not. I really unclear how rules work. Let's not try to analyze WCW's rules on contendership. Exactly. It is funny that it comes up like that. Yeah.
01:34:05
Speaker
Our eighth match is Brett the Hitman Hart versus Booker T for Booker's WSW World Television Championship. Referee for this one is Billy Silverman.
Hogan and Rodman vs. Page and Malone
01:34:15
Speaker
Kind of a familiar Pete here as Brett Hart, who is technically part of the individual at this point. It's it's weird because it's a period where he's, he's individual adjacent. Yeah. Even the Wiki page doesn't actually list as a member. So I don't know. But as we see, he comes out to their theme. Yes, unfortunately.
01:34:31
Speaker
Yeah, I know. As a member or the supporter of the group, he tries to get Booger T to join the group and he rejects it. So this leads to a series of shows and weeks where Bret Hart attacks Booger T during and after matches. Basically the exact same thing with DDP. Right. Yeah. You don't join us, then you're solidly against us and we're going to beat the crap out of you. Yeah.
01:34:52
Speaker
It's not a bad story to repeat, but it is interesting to see it, especially with DDP on the same show still finding the interview. Yeah. So this leads to the go home nitro where again, he interferes after a match because he recovers and he challenges Bret Hart to a match.
01:35:09
Speaker
This brings us D.V. Ray, who he's been teaming with. Additionally, the match was a tag team match, and he didn't see very lost because of Bret Hart. D. Ray berates him for not going to the back and taking him out like we would have a couple of years ago. Apparently Booker T is not a man, man enough for D.V. Ray because he's challenging right out to a fight in the ring. It's a little weird. I get what he's going for storyline wise, but that's just a service character, I guess. It's like you've lost your viciousness. Yeah.
01:35:38
Speaker
It's just weird because he literally refers to Booker T as a sissy for challenging Red Heart to a match. Yeah. That is a weird, like you are challenging him to a fight. You're not ducking a fight. Exactly. Yeah. But I, but I get what they're going for. That Stevie Ray is like, Hey, we're Harlem heat again. When we were Harlem heat before they were heels. So we would beat people up backstage and attack them and that kind of thing. And when he's trying to tie to the roots as well back in Harlem, you know, on the street to a taken him out and stuff like that as well.
01:36:05
Speaker
You don't try and set up rules for it or something like that. Exactly. Yeah. You just go for it. Yeah. Booker T says, you know, I'm not that guy. I'm going to handle him in the ring, show him the better man twice, putting his title in line. Right. Hart comes out and accept the match, but makes fun of them too. So I can see like where they're going with the angle, but the execution is a little weird. No pun intended. NWO theme count three. At least Hart didn't drop the pink from his color scheme after being associated with the NWO.
01:36:35
Speaker
That's true. The Hitman jacket is great. Booker gets some nice pyro and has the white outfit with flames tonight. I kind of wish he and Stevie coordinated since they're together at the moment. I think that might be a storyline thing. Yeah, that's true. Like there's already some dissension. Heart mouths off to Booker. So Booker shoves him. So much for being Mr. Nice Guy, Heart quips. Booker overpowers and outwrestles Heart. So Heart resorts to strikes first.
01:37:05
Speaker
Booker earns two counts with a crossbody and an awkward snap mirror where Hart just kind of falls. Yeah. They counter hip tosses until Booker sends Hart over the top rope to the floor. They brawl outside and Hart drops Booker on the barricade, then wears him down inside. Booker counters a whip with a spinebuster for two, but Hart clotheslines him out, sends him to the barricade in the ring post, hits a backbreaker, and gets two counts with a second rope elbow and Russian leg sweep.
01:37:32
Speaker
The fans cheer for Booker, so Hart sarcastically claps. Booker gets a slightly awkward corner roll-up for two, though to credit them it looked more like Hart fighting it than a botch. A variety of Booker kicks leads to the axe kick, but Heenan notes that he's slow to get up, even on a spin of Rooney after a flapjack where he has to pause midway. Booker missile dropkick for two, but Hart rolls out.
01:37:57
Speaker
Booker dives, but Hart clocks him in the back with a chair. Hart is disqualified, giving Booker the win. I saw the expression of pain on your face from that ending. I know. I'm sure our commentary will be good at that. Hart hits Booker with a chair again, puts him in the ring, and lands repeated chair shots focused on the knee as the bell incessantly rings. Then finishes up with a ring post figure four.
01:38:25
Speaker
Stevie Ray comes down to ringside in no apparent hurry, as the commentators note. Hart breaks off himself and walks off as Stevie looks at Booker in, as Tenet notes, disgust. Stevie eventually does roll Booker out, telling Silverman and a doctor to back off and let him handle it, despite Silverman saying Stevie might do more damage to Booker's knee. Stevie grudgingly helps Booker walk, and Silverman and the doctor give Booker much better support as they walk to the back. Thoughts on this?
01:38:55
Speaker
I think this is a good match, but it's a bit methodical. I think the crowd was maybe expecting something different. There's ways that can work. If you're a really good and interesting methodical wrestler like Bredar can often be, and you do a good job of like really shutting down a guy like say Ray Mysterio. Yeah. It can work because the high spots are so high and then you lose them, you wait for that to come back.
01:39:18
Speaker
I think as a whole, they kind of got that, but it's not quite as strong as I think they would be. If I were to tell you this correctly, Booker T is, let's have a legit knee issue, which is why he's wearing a brace during this. They say it's from the eight matches against Benoit, which that would do it. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. The pace they went through and how many matches they had, plus him fighting Finlay on the same night to win the title. The corner spot, you know, it didn't quite go right. And little things like that are like legit issues. He's just trying to power through.
01:39:48
Speaker
But to their credit, they did make that part of the story. Yes. It's better than if Bret Hart had worked his arm and then he'd had some issues with spots. Because then he'd be like, wait, why is this slowing him down when you're beating up his left arm? Yeah. Is this Bret Hart and Booker T? They know the business, obviously. I think they make the most of the situation. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely.
01:40:07
Speaker
That's sad because the key spots don't really go with playing like his first hook kick. He clearly doesn't get angry near Bret Hart's head. He like hooks around his arm, which I don't think it's how it's supposed to go. But again, to book his credit, he does stuff that if his knees bothering would still be very difficult like his drop kick and other moves. So he powers through which he's having very well.
01:40:28
Speaker
The finish is, yeah, it's just the wet part of a finish matches going really well. And yeah, I just have the chair. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like the moment I mentioned it, I saw your face just contort. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's such a sudden and stupid end to this match. We're just like.
01:40:48
Speaker
This was going so well, like it had little problems here and there, but it was just going so well. Like it was, it was an interesting thing to see these two guys wrestle, you know, Booker getting to go against Bret Hart. I think they say it's their first.
01:41:01
Speaker
I didn't go through Cade's match to see if they wrestled house throw matches, but as far as I know, it's the first. Yeah, it's such a notable match with these two guys that are both so good at what they do. And it's such a shame. What it feels like is last year's bit with the page and headache tag team and the suddenness with which that match cut off, but without the story justification that makes it okay. Agreed, yeah.
01:41:28
Speaker
Because the story momentum at this point is with Stevie and Booker. Yes. And that can be built up just as well without this match being cut off. Mm hmm. You could have Brett lose or cheat to win in some other way. Yeah. And then just go to town on Booker's knee with a chair because he's annoyed at him. Yeah. You don't have to have the match cut off super suddenly in this really awkward manner. Yeah. Just when it feels like, oh, yes, now it's picking up.
01:41:55
Speaker
Yeah. If you still need the finish of Brad Hart losing his qualification and making a point of really injuring the knee, have a muscle called medicine longer. Don't do the tear spot. I have break, get the sharpshooter on, but Booker
Show Conclusion and Critiques
01:42:07
Speaker
T because he's so tall and long-limbed. Yes. Yeah. And then he's like desperation. I can't make anything work on this guy. Now I'll do it. Yeah. Well, or Brad Hart even just won't break the hold. Right. Yeah. That works fine. Yeah. That sells the knee injury more. Whereas.
01:42:21
Speaker
You have to hit him with the chair and then attack his leg. What if you get done during the match itself? Yeah, just something where it looks like Hart has actually legitimately exhausted all options and can't figure out a way to actually win against this guy. And that's when he goes for it. This feels more like, oh, it kind of slightly turned against me. I think I'll go for the chair now.
01:42:38
Speaker
Yeah, there's this little bits in the buildup where they it's not clear if this is a story thing or just Bret Hart speaking honestly, but he accepts the challenge. He doesn't really seem to care the TV tiles in the line.
01:42:52
Speaker
So that kind of plays into the fact that he's willing to just lose if he has a qualification. Yeah. Although in kayfabe, you get more money if you win, supposedly. Yeah. I mean, that's always the argument to avoid. He'll just cheating on every single match. Exactly. Yeah. So it doesn't really explain why I do that. Explain why he doesn't care about necessarily being disqualified, but the way it's done, it's just so up hazard.
01:43:10
Speaker
Well, and if you don't care about being disqualified at all, well, you just start with the chair. You know, clearly he cares enough about winning that he wants to try and demonstrate his superiority as a wrestler or something. It just doesn't feel like it's gone far enough towards him realizing I'm not going to get to do that. Yeah.
01:43:27
Speaker
That's my problem with it. It just does not quite justify this enough. And last year I was willing to accept that because it kind of helped the storyline that came out of it. This year I don't think it does. No. It's just a sudden abrupt ending to a match that was going fairly well and you want to see more of it. Yeah. This was a perfectly acceptable match, but also kind of a disappointment. Yeah.
01:43:52
Speaker
There's nothing really wrong with this, and it was well put together with a variety of action, but I just, I know Booker and Brett are capable of more than this. Yeah. It's fine action while it lasts, but I think this is only a taste of what these two can actually do. Yeah. Well, it's a thing because it's a unique attraction. It's their first match.
01:44:10
Speaker
And then it, it plays out this way and into this way for disappointing. Yeah. Yeah. You really just want it a little bit more. I don't, I'm not offended by the lack of a conclusive finish to it with it being the first match that they've done. But, but I'm annoyed with how just abrupt and not really thought out the ending feels. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
01:44:31
Speaker
So on the next Nitro, Stevie Ray would come out and announced that Booker T is injured because of the attack and everything that happened. However, he is now the new TV champion as he has Booker T's power of attorney, which is somehow involved in title decisions. Of course. There's a book about the rules we can figure to find. We'll borrow that from Jericho and yeah, I hear it says power of attorney made me the champion.
01:44:52
Speaker
Yeah. By the way, not to get too far in a story, but if you think the story is, Oh, Stephen Ray's taking the title, but he's going to come back and fight over it. No, Stephen Ray loses the title before. So good job. Good job, bro. Yeah. So I mean, I guess you have the story, but he comes back to the, Hey, you know, I was champion and you lost it. But yeah, it's, there's no like foreign champion, new champion sort of payoff there.
01:45:20
Speaker
It's a weird progression. It gets out again, like, okay, if you're just going to do that weird storyline, then just do it where Brett does cheat to actually win against Booker, actually get the title and then go to town on his leg to explain his absence. Yeah. Oh, you could tie the story together by having the ref distracted by CB Ray being everything. Yeah. And that's why he misses the chair shot. Yeah. Do the thing where Booker T is legit knocked out from like a chair shot to the back or to the head. Hopefully not the head. And then he's put in the sharp shear like, Oh, the move knocked him out. Yeah.
01:45:50
Speaker
The only positive thing to come out of this is that this is sort of the beginning of Brad Hart really leading into the hit man part of his character, where he'll necessarily win matches, but to try to injure people and take them out like Luger and Conan, et cetera. So something mildly good comes out of this, but not as much as you'd hope. It's at least character development for Brad. Exactly. Yes. Matt ain't gonna happen, brother.
01:46:20
Speaker
just to show you that I'm a fair man. I'm gonna give you your chance to yell your stupid lungs out. I got a brother coming in a few minutes, an NWO black and white brother. He's gonna give Goldberg his first loss tonight, and you people can scream to the high heavens.
01:46:57
Speaker
just in case there's a lightning bolt in the center of the ring. Or Goldberg gets real lucky and gets by this end of your brother. Then and only then will I grace you in my presence and my wrestling boots and kill Goldberg high with style. I am gonna kick Goldberg's
01:47:47
Speaker
We get a video package covering Goldberg's shock win of the world title off of Hulk Hogan. In the middle of it, we get shots of a Hogan entrance, so NWO theme count, four.
01:48:05
Speaker
Interestingly, while the crowd does clearly cheer the win, there's a little trash thrown into the ring as well. Uh-huh. I guess there's just some more hardcore NWO fans in the house, maybe. Sure. Man, that sure was a great buildup to that Hogan Goldberg match we're getting tonight. Let's see how that turns out. Yeah. So our ninth match is Goldberg versus Kurt Henig, who is distinctly not Hulk Hogan for Goldberg's WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Referee for this one is Mickey J.
01:48:35
Speaker
Michael buffer does our ring introductions, including his let's get ready to rumble. Oh wow. They paid buffer to do that twice tonight. That was this year's budget. Yeah, right. Just kidding. WSW clearly never kept a budget. No buffer is dressed a lot like Oakland. So he didn't jokes that he stole Oakland suit. NWO theme count five.
01:48:59
Speaker
Headache shows off a Goldberg Who's Next t-shirt and he's added Goldberg as the answer. He throws it to a fan so that was a fun souvenir. Yeah. Goldberg looks great with the belt. Today even calls it a perfect fit. He gets his pyro shower which always looks cool. He's got some blood on his head so the traditional locker or door headbutt happened even though they didn't film him backstage this time. Yes.
01:49:25
Speaker
Goldberg sends Henig flying with a shoulder block and absorbs Henig's strikes, but Henig escapes a Goldberg leg scissor roll-up and rolls out. Henan notes that Henig has a desire to win on the same level as any other wrestler who wants to win. Revelatory. Good to know. Goldberg drags Henig back in. Henig stuns him and works the leg, including some scissor stomps and rope drops. Goldberg gets an ankle lock, but Henig makes the ropes.
01:49:54
Speaker
Hennig mostly misses a clothesline, but Goldberg generously sells anyway, and the Hennigplex gets two. Today he sounds stunned. There's not a lot of people that actually get to kick out of the Hennigplex, so... That is true, yeah. Goldberg spear, jackhammer, three count, Goldberg wins. So much for that plan, Heena notes. Goldberg celebrates with the belt as Tony goes over the good game plan that Hennig had, but says Goldberg can't be stopped.
01:50:23
Speaker
Goldberg even gets his pyro shower again on the way out. Thoughts on this? It's a quick match. That's just slightly above a squash, to be fair. Like I said, the headache does, you know, it's headache stuff. He does his nice selling. He finds a good body part. He works it for about 90 seconds or so.
01:50:43
Speaker
Chris, if you could have done a longer match with these two, I feel like we definitely could have. Yeah. Before they decided, no, we need all the rest of this show for the main event match. That needs every bit of time we have.
01:50:54
Speaker
So I don't necessarily mind a Goldberg's Watch match because obviously there are a lot of them on Nitro and Thunder and in Pay-Per-View. It's this whole deal at this point. Yeah, I'm fast, you know. It isn't even looked back, though. We saw the Goldberg Saturn match from earlier in this year, I believe, with 98 or 98. I didn't think the Saturn lasts like twice as long as Karanek does. Yeah. Admittedly, it's Goldberg as champion, so I guess it's like Super Saiyan Goldberg, maybe? Yeah, and I guess you don't really want to
01:51:24
Speaker
Once he's champion, you probably should start doing longer matches, but you probably don't want to do it for his first one. Like you don't want to start breaking the gimmick at that point. You want to go like another match down the line, maybe. Yeah. In a way, it's a nice example. We can show that you can have a plan like an attack is like, but if you don't do it enough, give him an inch. He takes a mile.
01:51:47
Speaker
Yeah, this was a super short match. The only ones that are shorter are the Conan disco match and Chavo submitting to a handshake. It's a bit of a shame. Henig and Goldberg worked really well together and had good chemistry. And I really would like to see the two of them get a longer match. I do know that Goldberg's still quite news of the ring, but Henig would be a good guy to give him a longer match against as a solid veteran that can guide him through a long match.
01:52:09
Speaker
Still, I like it from a storytelling perspective. It is all well and good to say that you're going to try and wear out your opponent over time, but it's partially up to your opponent how long a match goes. True, yeah. As Hina noted, no one has yet found a plan that can beat Goldberg's sheer might. Overall, this was fun, but it definitely didn't break the Goldberg formula.
01:52:29
Speaker
No, it'd be nice if you get, you've gone a little longer on some sort of tweak. Cause if you think about it too, the whole angle again, is that headache can take a body part out. But yet Goldberg is also trying that during the match. So it's interesting to think that Goldberg isn't just press slams, body slams, clothesline.
01:52:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's always one of the interesting things with the Goldberg character, isn't it? That he's this big powerhouse that wins matches super fast, but he actually does have part of his portrayal is, you know, some submissions experience and and and, you know, the good quick roll up that he can do and that kind of stuff. So it's it's an interesting thing to pull into that character that he's not just power. Right. Yeah. I mean, you actually want to match this. That'd be nice. Yeah. You know, be a lower tier individual guy. Be a submission. Oh, OK. I didn't need that pure jackhammer.
01:53:15
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So Road Wild would feature a NWO Invitational Battle Royal. D is that all the guys that aren't in other matches in both Wolfpack and Black and White would, you know, a big battle royal, whoever wins, will become number contender. Goldberg, I see a ton of matchbook that shows like, Hey, I should enter this match to determine who fights me next. It's so stupid.
01:53:39
Speaker
I'm glad Goldberg's on this show, but such a weird way to do it. That was one of the worst just battle rail concepts. Oh, yeah. The execution matches as its own other issue as we discussed.
01:53:51
Speaker
Yeah. So many, so many spirits that so many surprising people don't take well too. Yeah. Yeah. They really should have found a reasonable challenger for Goldberg. Maybe not a big storyline bill to it. Cause he's constantly just fighting people have a higher tier guy. That's nine to be whoa. I don't think he would be off top of my head. I like a, you know, Finley or someone in that range fight Goldberg, have a legit title match on that show and then have the battery way happen. And then he comes out as like, you know what you want the match now we'll do right now.
01:54:20
Speaker
Sorry, you said higher tier. I know you said Finley. I was trying to think of somebody else. He was recently champion. Fair enough. I couldn't think of anybody else. I did, you know, it just shows you how how completely dominating the end of your concept is at this point that like most of the guys you can think to mention are involved in it. Yeah. That's the TV radio that didn't see me better.
01:54:47
Speaker
Tony throws to a video package, showing what led up to the main event. No narration and some quite sudden soundtrack shifts, so not really great coverage of the story here. No. Pretty annoying. Our final match is Hollywood Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodzilla Rodman, with the disciple, versus Diamond Dallas Page and Carl the Mailman Malone. Referee is Charles Robinson.
01:55:13
Speaker
The N.W.O. in the past tried to recruit D.P. because he was a star on the rise. He rejected them and he became one of their many big enemies. And around this time, the NBA playoffs are happening, which is literally a part of why they did the big title change on Nitro. They thought they could sort of get an in on WWF at the time because the playoffs were happening.
01:55:34
Speaker
Now, of course, during the playoffs, it is a fact the Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls had a very heated contest and there is numerous interactions throughout the games between Malone and Rodman. So the fact they got them both to Greta Russell, obviously the bigger get from Malone because Rodman's appeared twice just in the series. Yeah, it's not as notable that Rodman's here again. Yeah.
01:55:56
Speaker
It was even on Baywatch with them. I'm not sure he was aware he was on Baywatch with them. Yeah, I'm guessing it was a paid based on that either of what we discussed. This odd little things they do that build up like they actually do a show in Tampa and they build up the whole show that DDP and Malone are driving to the show in a big 18 wheeler truck.
01:56:14
Speaker
They make an offhand reference to Malone, by the way, owning a fleet of eight wheeled trucks, which I didn't look up. But I guess, I don't, I didn't lie about that. I don't know what the context of why he owns twin trucks is or owned, I guess. Maybe it's for his male business. That makes sense. So anyways.
01:56:31
Speaker
They say that they're driving the big rig truck from where the last show happened in Orlando to nitro in Tampa So of course it arrived till near the end of the three-hour nitro Which must have been bad traffic because we don't want to taste to get from Tampa to Orlando Yeah, you think the DDP would of all people would be better at you know plotting out a trip. Yeah It just coincidentally arrived with the main event sex on the show. I'm sure yeah
01:56:57
Speaker
Also, as part of the build up, you see DP doing most of promo wisely and most of the physical interaction again wisely. There's bits where he tries to prompt Malone and give him his setup lines. Kind of works. He's got, you know, we've seen Mongo do promos, other people do promos worse. And to be fair, again, he's not a guy who's with promos, but it's it's not great. Is it better or worse than Rodman's first promo, the Vader?
01:57:25
Speaker
It's better than that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. He knows his line. He doesn't fairly well, but he clearly has to be prompted and like very overtly by DP. Gotcha. He also managed to body slam Hogan, which is good to see. They put the video package after putting him since we're weird, like front headlock where he's like, they're hugging. He does that in this match too. He has a weird way of doing those.
01:57:48
Speaker
Yeah, because it's not a front unlock. It's not a cravat. It's some sort of weird combination of the two where you stand chest to chest with a guy and sort of hold their head for a bit. Obviously, in that context, he was prepping against the cue from Hogan. Now it's a good time for the body slam. But yeah, it's still a weird hold all the same. Buffer is back declaring this a tag team match bigger than any title, trophy or championship belt. Really? Yeah.
01:58:18
Speaker
Not the strangest intro he's had to give during this series, at least. That still belongs to the Buzz Aldrin intro, I think, on 94. I feel like it would have him say Championship Ring, by the way. That would have been nice given the context. Yeah, yeah, probably, yeah. He hits ready to rumble again, so pay him. Yeah. NWO theme count, six. Hogan is out first in his usual outfit and Rodman is second with a Rodzilla NWO t-shirt. Oh, good gosh, they actually made merchandise.
01:58:47
Speaker
Oh yeah, it probably sold lots, sadly. Disciple kind of lingers in the back, doing nothing in particular, as is his want. Yes. Rodman and Hogan pose for photos from a brigade of photographers as today proclaims them perhaps the most famous tag team ever in wrestling. Sure. Uh, what? Rock and roll express, midnight express, the rockers. Yeah. Who's ever heard of any of those people?
01:59:15
Speaker
Malone and DDP entered DDP's theme, doing stereo signs of the diamond cutter on the entrance ramp. Buffer proclaims them, two men that aligned themselves with no affiliations or organizations. I think WSW and the Utah Jazz would probably disagree. Yes, very much so.
01:59:33
Speaker
Malone looks in terrific shape. Absolutely. It's no surprise as he's a basketball great, but still dude is ripped. He perfectly mimics all DDPs entrance and pre-match mannerisms. Yeah. There's a nice bit during the, uh, stereo diamond cutter symbols on the ramp that you can see DDP kind of leading, but waiting for Malone to match him on each point before he moves on to the next part of the sequence. Did he be very good at leading someone through things as you would expect. Yeah.
02:00:02
Speaker
He's like, Malone, we've practiced this six times today. As we engage in the usual pre-match stalling from the NWO team, Tony mentions a confrontation on Jay Leno's The Tonight Show. We are setting up the next celebrity match before we've even finished the current celebrity match. Milone and Rodman start. Once Rodman has Hogan take his sunglasses off. They circle around so much that even Tony notes that there's been quite a lot of that.
02:00:32
Speaker
One headlock, and then back to the stalling, and attack to Hogan. He and Malone compete at muscle poses, and Hogan seems to take psychic damage from Malone's. They eventually lock up, and Malone does slam Hogan. The commentators praise it, but not to the ridiculous degree that they did for Rodman last year. Tags to Page and Rodman. A few Page shoves, and Rodman arm drags him, which Heenan says Page didn't expect.
02:00:59
Speaker
Really? After you guys talked it to death last year? Yeah, right? Paige gets two off of falling over Rodman somehow. He had a collision on a leapfrog. The crowd laughs and boos. Yeah. Malone in, and Hogan and Rodman trade off wearing him down for an extended period of time, as I wonder why in the name of all that is holy, the basketball players are in so much of this match.
02:01:25
Speaker
In the process, Rodman holds Malone for a Hogan punch, then kind of just falls over when Hogan hits Malone. What is the one from martial arts where you hit him? You have an eternal damage? Yeah, it's just like a vibration strike. Yeah, exactly. He couldn't control his strength so much. Not sure his Tony or today that says, oh, we hit him that hard. Yeah, but good cover, but yeah.
02:01:49
Speaker
They do get two counts of running Malone into Hogan's boot and some Hogan punches. Malone makes the tag after dodging a Hogan elbow drop. Paige immediately hits a diving clothesline, forearm, rapid punches, and a spinning lariat, doing more in ten seconds than happened in the previous five minutes. But Rodman knees him from outside, so there goes that burst of action.
02:02:10
Speaker
Hogan and Rodman trade off wearing Paige down, occasionally tricking Malone and distracting the ref. At least it does feel more like a normal tag match paced with Paige in there now. Yeah. They get two counts with a double clothesline and a Hogan suplex. At several points, Hogan tags Rodman in, they do a move, and Rodman goes back to the apron without a tag. Only once does it seem like it's meant as real trickery. The rest I think he just forgot it was his turn.
02:02:38
Speaker
Hogan generally just kind of pauses for a moment and gives him a look and then tags him in. I get a distinct sense as this match goes on that Hogan is a tad irritated with Rodman. Yeah, his pre-match prep was not everyone else's pre-match prep. Hogan big boot, but Paige dodges the leg drop and tags Malone, who happily close lines and slams Hogan and Rodman and batters Hogan around the ring.
02:03:01
Speaker
Tag to Paige, Diamond Cutter to Hogan, but Rodman runs in, so Malone, Diamond Cutter's Rodman. They kind of have the grip wrong, he's got both hands on the same side of his head, but the snap is pretty good.
02:03:14
Speaker
Malone holds Rodman down while Page pins Hogan, but Robinson tries to get Malone and Rodman out, so Disciple sneaks in and hits the apocalypse, basically a stunner, though it kind of looks more like a screwed up diamond cutter, on Page, then rolls the unconscious Hogan on top. Robinson turns and counts three, giving Hogan the win. Malone hits the diamond cutter on Disciple after the match, getting the grip right this time, but a little bit less of a snap.
02:03:42
Speaker
Disciple sells it, right up until a fan hits him right on the knee with a thrown soda, which understandably makes him jump. Oh yeah, yeah. Malone thinks they've won, but Robinson corrects him, so Malone hits the diamond cutter on him too. It's probably the best of his three, actually. Yeah? NWO theme count, seven. Good gosh.
02:04:05
Speaker
Malone and Page pose as Hogan, Rodman, and Disciple retreat, and other NWO members arrive. Hennig, but also Hall, Scott Steiner, and Vincent, so pay them. Rodman finally takes his shirt off, throwing it to the crowd. Hogan declares Goldberg is next, and gets somebody's Hogan action figure and says the NWO belt is his.
02:04:28
Speaker
Paige and Malone exit through the crowd. Hogan proclaims I'm king of the world and does a very weird strut. It's kind of like the old walk like an Egyptian song. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He's a real bangles fan. How do these things relate? Titanic? I don't know. This is a very, very long exit. Yeah.
02:04:48
Speaker
Hienan says the victory tonight lets Hogan keep the N.W.O. Hollywood under control. A second loss after he lost to Goldberg might have broken his old. Fair enough, I think, on the idea, like we said last year, you've been shown as vulnerable. If you also are humiliated here by losing to a basketball player, maybe. It is weird to hear probably Hogan's legit pitch to Bischoff as a way he can't lose the match, told by commentators of the show. As fair. Oh, go.
02:05:18
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? It's bad. I mean, yeah. I know you have a point to say. I mean, honestly, yeah, it's very bad. Yeah.
02:05:29
Speaker
I would say something goes wrong, but I know what goes wrong. It's, it's Robin. Yeah. He seems like he's in no condition to perform. I mean, the way he falls over the way he takes bumps off of things that aren't bumps that you have with him going in and out of the ring. The period where he seemed like he's actually asleep while resting his head on the, uh, in the corner turnbuckle. He's not cartoonishly posing like, Oh, it's so easy. I'm falling asleep. It's like he's actually, he actually, yeah.
02:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, like I'm not sure if it's, as you said, not being a condition to perform or if it's just like an example of why they had to whisper to him so much last year that he just like does forget his spots a lot. That's part of the difference between these two matches. Yeah. Well, there's numerous ones, but that one, as we talked about, Randy Savage is there to constantly go, hey, here's the next thing. Yeah. And Hogan's also there to tell them they do a good like tag team work on keeping Rodman. Yeah. Focused on what's on what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. The real proper tag team match on that show is them. Yes. And Rodman.
02:06:23
Speaker
Corralling him. The Mega Powers reunite to direct Rodman, yes. It really is the Marvel style corralling cats, yes. Yeah, where you notice a lot less of people whispering to Rodman in this match, so that's, I would wager that's part of why this one goes really poorly.
02:06:39
Speaker
I like to think that at some point Rodman, he got used to that from the previous match. He goes to disciple and asks what's next and disciple kind of looks at him. Yes. You think they tell me the plot? Disciple barely recognizes who Kevin Nash is. That's true. I mean, he's legit forgotten his name at least once we know of his storyline.
02:06:57
Speaker
The big problem besides Rodman is that they make this match so long and the people that should not be in for long sections of the match are in for long sections of the match. It's like 23 minutes and a good portion of that is the basketball guys. I know. Yeah, exactly.
02:07:13
Speaker
It's it's a case of where clearly there was a full binder for this. Then Hogan gets a hold of it and Rodman gets a hold of it. And he remembers writing for Rodman and they're like, oh, no, don't do this. We should just think that doesn't work because, you know, your formula for working matchwork clearly doesn't work, even though we who we could see how well it worked every other time. I would argue part of the problem is I think Rodman just didn't read the binder. Yeah. Yeah.
02:07:43
Speaker
The finish, so they build up a nice six sequence of things, you know, missing leg drop, all these things. And, you know, diamond cutters, then the finishes at Leslie running and hitting his finish of all things on DDP, DDP jobs out to Ed Leslie. Yes. People on thunder don't drop out to Ed Leslie. The only positive from the way that plays out is the fact that.
02:08:07
Speaker
Hogan doesn't recover from the Diamond Cutter and pin DDP. That's the one thing DDP has been hard, like, fine, have it, Leslie. But he's staying down. Yeah, I was going to say that that's definitely the one thing that finish gets absolutely right is Hogan sells the Diamond Cutter like death. Yes. Like he is out. He is completely unconscious. He barely stirs even when when Leslie rolls him on top of DDP. So
02:08:34
Speaker
If nothing else, we can praise that part of part of this match. I would love to be in the room where they're discussing the fish and then unless he runs it, it beats DDP cut cut to DP's face. Yeah. I mean, he's going to be wrestling alongside Leno in a month. So yeah, you know, they get so much attention for the show and they get huge by rate and is what they give. Yeah. Yeah. That tells the audience what to expect. Mm hmm.
02:09:05
Speaker
This was double the length of the next longest match on the show. Yeah, that's Eddie versus Chavo. It's triple the length about of Booker versus Hart is about quadruple the length of Mysterio versus Jericho or Giant versus Green. Yeah, it is about sex. Tupple the length of the world title match. It's true. Yeah.
02:09:31
Speaker
It is almost 24 minutes long. It does not have the content to make up that time span. And the structure is bizarre. Normally you would expect Page and Hogan to manage like 80 to 90% of this match with Rodman and Malone brought in for a few spots in the ending sequence.
02:09:49
Speaker
But instead, Malone and Rodman are in the match extensively, even against each other. They are not prepared for that level of involvement, and it shows, with slow start and stop action, and a lot of repetition.
02:10:02
Speaker
The match is incredibly slow, with lengthy pauses between moves and tons of stalling. It is made far worse by the weirdness going on with Rodman. Besides several weird klutz attacks, unexpected of a very accomplished NBA star, Rodman just seems to forget he's been tagged in multiple times.
02:10:21
Speaker
The match picks up a bit in the later going when Paige is getting beaten down by Hogan and Rodman, as they structure it much more like a normal tag match face and peril segment. Hogan does most of work on his side, more like he would have expected, and Paige is good at just keeping things moving. By that point, though, the damage was done. They were fighting a losing battle for my attention even when I was writing my show notes when I had to pay attention. Yeah.
02:10:45
Speaker
The ending was okay, I guess. Like as I credit to Hogan for a good sell of the diamond cutter to the point that he lies almost fully limp when disciple rolls him on top of page for the pin. See, Duggan, that's how you sell it. Yeah. Otherwise I cannot believe that they made this match so long. It would not surprise me if it ended up on my worst matches of the series, except that I know some stuff on 1999 and 2000 and those will probably be worse. Yeah. But man, this was boring. Mm hmm.
02:11:16
Speaker
I get this drawing fiction that you gave and that they gave to why this solidifies Hogan's power, but you could have had Robin be beaten.
02:11:26
Speaker
Yeah. The classic Hobbitt Hogan thing would be Rodman's beaten by Diamond Cutter, whether it's from Malone or Page, doesn't really matter. And kind of the next night talking about how the N.O.B.O. didn't lose that night and he just pretends like Rodman was never a thing. Like he wasn't part of the group, like he wasn't there last week or on Thunder. He's like, you know, he didn't pay the N.O.B.O. so we didn't really lose, yada, yada, yada.
02:11:50
Speaker
I was thinking about how they could have done something different in this show. If you're still obsessed with getting a big spiked buy rate by having the Goldberg Hogan match happen on Nitro, have it happen on the Nitro after the show. Hogan is so revelatory having beaten, having won in I Will Become the Odd, Nothing Can Stop Me, I'll Be Champion Forever, Goldberg music hits.
02:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I can see that being a good timing for it. Yeah. If you're doing this match, you're doing this match on pay-per-view. You're not doing this. So that's it's like the one time that I'm OK with you shifting around a world title challenge, even one that that magnitude may be. But it still feels like probably should have been on pay-per-view. But anyway, that actually would be a really nice timing for it that, yeah, Hogan's like, hey, we proved the superior already at the NWO once again. And oops, crap, I got pinned by Goldberg.
02:12:43
Speaker
One of many issues with having the Goldberg win happen, when it does, is that it really eats in the DDP story. Yes. He's fighting the odds, constantly going against them. Hogan's world champion. He wants to get a shot at them. And then here comes Goldberg, beats them in one night with almost no build. Yeah, yeah.
02:13:02
Speaker
Do you still want to beat you up with this tag team match with no stakes? Yeah, it does. It does diminish the Paige storyline. I think like we've been open in the past about it would have been really nice to get Paige a run with the world title in 1998 when he's really, really hot. And I think the trouble you run into is like,
02:13:21
Speaker
It also does feel increasingly weird to not have Goldberg be a world title challenger the longer you're doing his winning streak. And maybe we hadn't quite reached that point. Maybe there was another way that they could do it, but it's just these two storylines really just clash, especially when you're adding in the Wolfpack stuff as well. There's so much going on in 98 that all demands attention. And unfortunately, they don't manage to find the right way to put all these puzzle pieces together where everyone gets the proper amount of highlight.
02:13:50
Speaker
And of course, while that's going on, you have them bringing in Rodman Malone, and then you have them bringing in to all the next shows. There's all these things they want to do and they just can't fit it all together, unfortunately. Exactly. But yeah, like I said, my biggest issue with the main event is just that it gets them so much attention and this is what they give them. Yeah. I genuinely think you cut off some time from this. Cut it down to 13 minutes instead of 23. Sure.
02:14:15
Speaker
I think you get a crisper match out of it. Yeah. And better work out of it. Take those 10 minutes, distribute them among some of the other matches on the show that were quite short. Yeah. Maybe give Henne two more minutes with Goldberg, Jericho and Ray a little bit more time or something like that. Yeah. You know, or just add one more match. I don't know. I think this match would have enough action for 13 minutes. I don't think it has enough action for 23.
02:14:37
Speaker
Mm hmm. Well, it's a thing you get into a lot with WCW is that they create a great product for the most part. So if you watch this show straight through, you're like, Oh, here's some good action here. There's a good story here. But then you sort of have to accept whatever you get for the main event. You like the star power. But if you really objectively look at the matches, you get sometimes like, Oh, man.
02:14:57
Speaker
Yeah. This is a really good show. Just kind of forget this part happened. Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of at the view of this show. I have to pretend there's not a horribly or a long, terrible 23-minute tag match at the end. Yeah.
02:15:10
Speaker
It's part of the buildup with the N.W.O. thing. They had been doing, Eric Bischoff doing his fake Tonight Show segments during Nitro, which got terrible reactions, by the way, even a lot of crowd. I'm sure in the back of them, look how much they're booing us. It's amazing. We're doing so well. They have a difference between booing out of apathy and actual disgust and boo, you're a bad guy. I want to fight.
02:15:33
Speaker
They do prolonged nonsense like have Scott Steiner come out, talk about he's a big movie star, he's got stuff in the works, tease he's gonna announce who his big co-star is next week, and then just don't do that next week. Jeez. Not that I wanted to see the payoff, because I'm sure he's gonna picture of himself for some nonsense, but yeah.
02:15:51
Speaker
So all of that leads to a bit where after this, Jay Leno makes fun of Hulk Hogan on The Tonight Show. And then they take over very, very briefly a segment on The Tonight Show to build up a match, which is then undercut by having Hulk Hogan appear out of character to promote the show.
02:16:12
Speaker
Which is bizarre, but yeah, so this leads to, as of the second most infamous celebrity match crossover in the comic's history, at DDP, we team up with Jay Leno against Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff. Yeah. Which, strangely enough, I recall not being good. No. But I recall being better than this. Oh, oh yes, 100%. Which I would not have expected to say. Tony wraps up the show and credits Malone and Rodman for coming to wrestle.
02:16:40
Speaker
Debatable particularly in the latter case. Yeah Today says the NWO's game plan won the day Tony and Henan build up Goldberg and Henan says he truly looked the part of a champion Tony wishes Matt a happy birthday and bash the beach 1998 is done Don't know who Matt is but happy birthday Matt. Yeah Overall thoughts on bash the beach 1998
02:17:04
Speaker
So it's honestly not a bad show if you look at the entire picture. There's definitely a lot of short matches that were in another don't get the time they would need. Uh, there's some unfortunate finishes like Bret Hart and poker T and then the main event is as we discussed is not great.
02:17:23
Speaker
There's enough good, I think, to outweigh the bad. You know, you don't get a proper, like, real, prolonged fight on the beach set. You still get that nice beach feel to the show. Yeah. And I appreciate that Ray and Jericho did go up there. Yes, someone did eventually. Yeah. Obviously, as a Floridian, I'm a little annoyed that they took a show away from our state. But, you know, I guess not that big a deal in hindsight. At least they took it away from our state to go to another beach state. That's true.
02:17:48
Speaker
It's a good show as a whole. It's a shame that the thing that is most remembered by design, you know, the marketing was around that tag match that so much good happened in the show when you kind of had to forget about that. They don't think something could be better show as far as pacing and matches that don't end well or don't need to exist. Like just go and Conan, but it's, I don't think if that as a whole, if it's the worst batch of the beach we've seen, I know there's worse coming. Hmm.
02:18:18
Speaker
I found this a average, unexceptional show with some good matches and a lot of average ones up until the last match, which was dreadful. Yeah. Now that doesn't sound that bad. We've got eight or nine average or good matches, depending on if you count Chavo versus Stevie, which is technically a match. And there's only one bad one. The trouble is that bad one accounts for, no joke, nearly one quarter of the show. That's true. Yeah.
02:18:44
Speaker
Seriously, buffer's intro starts seconds shy of the two hour mark and exit from that match ends about one minute from the end of the two hour, 38 minute and six second show. It pretty much kills the show dead. Yeah. There is fun to be had in the first two hours to be sure, but there's nothing to really go out of your way to see. Some matches, including the world title match are dreadfully short and to have room for the main event, I guess.
02:19:12
Speaker
In a break from the norm, while we did have more promos and video packages than last show, we didn't have an overwhelming amount. True, yeah. They varied in quality. Guerrero's was hit or miss, the internet segments weren't always relevant, and the video packages mostly did a poor job building things up and were sometimes annoying. But Jericho and JJ Dillon were a ton of fun in the Build Up to Jericho's match at least. Yeah.
02:19:36
Speaker
Commentary was fine. I miss Dusty, but Tenet got in the mix well and participated in Hienan's jokes and Tony and Hienan's arguments more than he sometimes does. So they had a good overall feel throughout the night. They felt like they were having a good time, which obviously helps the audience have a good time. It definitely helped that the team did not spend as much time overselling the main event in the basketball player's performance as they did last year. They praised things but only to a degree that they would other matches.
02:20:02
Speaker
Production was largely fine. I can't recall much in the way of missed shots or audio glitches, save for one bit where the ring bell was causing audio distortions, I think during Hart's repeated chair shots to Booker after their match.
02:20:14
Speaker
There was one bit, it wasn't really bad, but it was an odd bit. They suddenly cut to the ring announcer because he's holding the clipper. Right. Yeah. And just this like 20 second shot, like a tight shot of him where you see his cummerbund, his super bright cummerbund there. He's not doing it with them. He's just saying they're holding them. Like, how long do we hold this shot? Now.
02:20:34
Speaker
He had no jokes there for his nose hair or something like that, I think. The beach set, again, was great. WSW keeps nailing that each year in this series, and it is wonderful to see. It didn't get used as extensively tonight, but at least Jericho and Mysterio had some fun with it. On a night when they had tons of eyes watching, WSW put on pretty much an average show for three quarters of the night, then plunged off a cliff for the final quarter.
02:21:01
Speaker
I wouldn't really recommend bothering to put this one on. Anything good on it is well-outdone by other shows in this series, and What's Bad is very bad. Yeah, it'd be a very tentative recommendation, I'd say, compared to other Batch of the Beaches, for sure. Yeah, definitely don't watch the main event. No. The rest of the show's fine. Yeah. There's good moments to be had throughout or something. Match of the Night and MVP.
Match of the Night and MVP Discussion
02:21:25
Speaker
So, Al, what is your Match of the Night?
02:21:28
Speaker
Uh, not as much the options that I would like for match of the night, obviously. Yeah. Saturn Raven was good up until the finish got all mangled up as we discussed. I really liked Eddie versus Chavo that thankfully is on the show that that wasn't on the show. I don't know how, how we create the show as a whole. That's a real bump up in quality for sure. Um, since so much is Oprah formed, you know, they're not great. Like giant and Kevin green. I shorted was Jericho and Ray was good. Mm-hmm.
02:21:58
Speaker
For me, match the night has to be Eddie and Chavo. Okay. It's the best blend of entering work and story, I think they had. I would say runner-up is obviously who we had kidnapped. I forgot to mention my overall summary. Problem is there's not a story there, and they don't just progress the story during the match. They're hitting really cool-looking moves and hitting them well, but there's no narrative around it, as I would say.
02:22:22
Speaker
Whereas even if you want to say love the balance of comedy and action in the Eddie Chavo match, every part of it is that they do as a match has worked very well. Absolutely. This is interesting because I've made a different decision, but I think my reasoning is almost identical. Okay. So for me, it was between Whovian Kidman and Mysterio and Jericho. Okay.
02:22:43
Speaker
And I'm going to go with Mysterio and Jericho because while both are good solid matches, there's much more emotion and story in Mysterio versus Jericho, especially connected to Jericho's great pre-match performance, a good angle and Mysterio's return. Plus they had some fun with the beach set, which is always appreciated. I also, as I said, really liked that while they had Milenko involved in the finish, it is clearly Mysterio's effort that wins the day. It doesn't feel cheapened and easily could have. So with all that, it stands out the most to me.
02:23:12
Speaker
Okay. That's fine. Yeah. MVP. So a few people definitely worth mentioning. Obviously Jericho with his matchwork and promo where it's a great on the show. Eddie even stumbles a bit on his own promo. He is outside the ring work before the match and then his matchwork throughout is really good. He's so good. Mm-hmm.
02:23:31
Speaker
Even if he's buried in the main event, DDP does a good job with what he does. And he definitely tries to do something with his match. He just fortunately does not succeed. Some people would less than agree, like Hennig, even though he doesn't have much time to do anything, does his part really well. Goldberg really looks the part, even though he doesn't work a match super well.
02:23:50
Speaker
The commentary, if you're going to go commentary, I think they do a great job throughout the show as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Have them make good fun of Giovanni because he mixes up a table and a chair. The whole line about how you go to his house and they're all sitting on. They're all sitting on tables and eating on chairs. I forgot to mention that one. Yeah. Yeah.
02:24:08
Speaker
They have so much fun with that. I really also with Eddie because I think his work throughout the show was good and really, really good. But for me, the guy who had to perform and had to step up and did with Chavo. Yeah, he's very, very good in the match. He's very good at capturing his character, getting a lot of complex stuff across. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And technically it works two matches in the show. That's always true. Yeah.
02:24:33
Speaker
I should probably give this to Chris Jericho for absolutely nailing his pre-match promo and putting on a great match. But there was a guy on this show that I think also did a great job and that I don't often get the chance to award.
02:24:46
Speaker
So, for a high-energy performance, and being really up for whatever he's asked to do, I'm gonna give this one to Kevin Green. That's fair play. I didn't mention him, but yeah, absolutely. He just consistently impresses me whenever he's on, especially honestly in contrast to the other sports stars used on this show. That's very embarrassing. You want a clear example of why the main event sucks? Mhm.
02:25:08
Speaker
The guys in that match, primarily Rodman, but honestly, I'm going to criticize Malone a bit for this as well. They are just not as prepped and ready to go and gung-ho about it as Kevin Green is in his match against the Giant. Watching him in that match, if you didn't tell me who he was going into it, I would think he was a wrestler.
02:25:30
Speaker
weirdly a football themed wrestler, but I would think he was an actual wrestler probably early in his career. But I'd be like, Oh yeah, this guy's pretty good. I like to see how he develops. To be fair, the WWF had baseball and hockey. Exactly. Yeah. They've got their like jobs and sports star versions of wrestlers during that period. But yeah, I think that's what gets it for me is like, this guy is a guest star on the same show with other guest stars. And the difference is so clear. That's fair. Yeah.
Podcast Closing and Next Episode Teaser
02:25:55
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Bash at the Beach 1998. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. The link will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements, another show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audible, iHeartRadio, Spotify, TuneIn, or Pandora.
02:26:21
Speaker
And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance in pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. Next up, Bash of the Beach 1999. A tidal wave of trash-talkin' body-slammin' tsunami fury.
02:26:44
Speaker
Not sure about trash talking, but considering it features the junkyard invitational, there definitely is a tidal wave of trash. That's true, yes. Also, Rick Steiner versus Van Hammer, the No Limit Soldiers versus the West Texas Rednecks, and Buff Bagwell boxing Rowdy Roddy Piper. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to this one. Double it away. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.
02:27:24
Speaker
As Stevie looks at Booker in as today notes, disgust. Hello, plane. That's the same look. I'm giving you plane. He disgusted. Look picture Stevie Ray glaring at you right now. Just glaring at you like, how could you do this? How could you interrupt their show? Do you feel bad about what you've done? Do you feel bad? You should.