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Well, here we go again. Time to throw money back into Vince’s pocket by resubbing to the Network and start my most stupidly ambitious, probably-destined to fail project. A few years back i reviewed random shows from the WWE network: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3845321 Now, it's time to focus on recapping WCW’s plummet into craptitude, via the medium of every episode of “WCW Thunder” of the year 2000. Hell, I may recap the Pay-Per-Views, too. But don’t quote me on that. Or expect me to actually finish. I chose Thunder for a very good reason. It’s shorter than Nitro. Although I doubt it’ll be better for my sanity. Let’s get to it, shall we? It’s January the 6, 2000! We start the year with a recap of a previous show, predictably enough. Terry Funk has been made the Commissioner of WCW, because he “likes pain”. Pretty sure the year 2000 is going to bring a LOT of that to anyone watching this show, Terry. He’s got Arn Anderson as an Enforcer and Special Referee for the main event of Souled Out. I haven’t watched that show in 22 years, and oh god, I'm going to have to, huh? The nWO (With Bret Hart looking depressed in the background) kidnaps Daffney, which leads to… a World tag Team Title match? Sure, why not. Shenanigans happen, Arn biffs someone with a crowbar, and the titles get won by David Flair and Crowbar. (The wrestler, not the actual crowbar, which would have been funnier) The nWO kidnaps Arn in a fit of pique and drives off with him. Annnnd, we cut to the actual show, where the nWo are dragging Arn BACK to the arena, three days later. Great work, local law enforcement. Equally great work from the crack TBS production crew as we clearly hear someone shout “We’re clear!” as we cut to the arena itself.  "Hurry up guys, I have three people I need to call Slapnuts!" We’re in Florence, South Carolina! I’m from New Zealand, so I know nothing about American locales outside the unending horrifying food in the Americana thread. I’ll just Google the news about each place. Let’s see, thieves drive black pick-up into Florence’s Magnolia Mall, steal ATM, shooting at a strip club, charges dropped against man impersonating police officer. Sounds nice. And they have a decent-looking Vegan food truck. Mike, Tony and Scott are the announcers. We’re kicking off with the Cruiserweight Championship on the line. The champion is… Madusa? I forgot that happened. She’s facing Asia, WCW’s thinly-veiled knockoff of… someone, I forget who. She does a nice backflip off the top rope to enter, which is probably going to be the high point of the match as mouther-loving “Oklahoma” enters and heads for the announce desk. Fuuuuuuuuuck this guy.  Guess we know what political party SHE voted for. The match starts as he blabs, and hey look, it’s our first run-in of the year. Glad they waited a whole FOURTEEN SECONDS before sending Dean Malenko and Shane Douglas on down. Okie cuts a sexist promo on Madusa, Saturn arrives to bop Asia over the head, German Suplex, Madusa retains at 1:43. Rating: Sorry, blinked too long and the match was over. No stars. We’re off to a fine clusterfuck as the Filthy Animals run in, and Okie apparently smashes a barbeque sauce bottle on Madusa. I say apparently, because THEY MISS THE SHOT. Always good to potentially injure one of your wrestlers for no reason. Coming up tonight: NORMAN SMILEY! And Jeff Jarrett. Well, one out of two ain’t bad. Juvy and Psychosis enter. Juvy is dressed like a background character from HEATHERS and is doing his terrible Dwayne Johnson impersonation. He cuts a promo on Tony Schivonne, which is practically incomprehensible. Something about having “a juicy night”, which I would pass on if I were you, Tony. A mild kerfuffle breaks out, and Tony gets evicted from the desk. Terry Funk wanders out and beats down the pair of interlopers, resulting in the first broken table of the year.  gently caress me gently with a Chainsaw. Crowd Sign: Nash World Order. I assume they’re too lazy to take over the world's governments. Funk calls out Double J, who adds to 2000’s Slapnuts quota by one, and we go to a commercial. Backstage, Mean Gene interviews The Revolution. Shane Douglas gets to swear a lot. Ooh, edgy. Meanwhile, a WCW cameraman watches the nWo beating up Arn. Might want to call the cops, dude. Booker T gets interviewed in the ring next, because we have to recover from that 103 seconds of wrestling action somehow. Booker is feuding with Stevie Ray, and briefly, feuds with the English language as he blows multiple lines. Stevie Ray shows up to shout at Booker for a while. He wants to wrestle Midnight, threatening to “beat her into a conniption”. I have NO idea what that looks like, so I'm all for it.  He’s one mangled syllable away from his first “schucky ducky” Crowd Sign: Drunk Terry Flunk. I’d like to be drunk while watching this, kid. Backstage, David “The Least Interesting Man in the Building” Flair, Crowbar and the never-ending fountain of awesome that was Daffney arrive. Eli Roth’s still booking Arn Anderson’s torture porn movie as we return from commercial. Looks like we’re finally about to have a second match with… … …ummm.  I don’t have a loving CLUE who these two are, and what circus is missing them. It’s “PG-13”, apparently, composed of J.C Ice and Wolfie D. They appear to have white rapper gimmicks, although that’s only a guess as Mr Ice’s microphone isn’t actually turned on at first. WCW, you were amazing. They’re teaming with Chavo Guerrero against 3-Count. They also have broken microphones, but as a boy band, they were unnecessary anyway.  STAGE DIVE! PG-13 prove to be no Rhodes Scholars, as Evan Karegius tricks them into repeatedly elbow-dropping each other. Shane Helms gently hits Chavo with a green cardboard circle and he’s pinned by Shannon Moore after 1:32 of blistering action. Rating : 1/92th of a star. Commercials, recaps and we’re on to match three! Will this one last longer than a YouTube advert?  “Someone order a limo?” The Wall vs. Jerry Flynn is under “Shoot Fight Rules”. Only way to win is by submission or KO. It gets underway… for like, eight seconds before we get Tank Abbott wandering on in. (as his music plays for three seconds, then fades out like it doesn’t care about him, either)  If Goldberg fell into the Brundlefly machine with Eddie Deezen. They give Tank a headset at the announce table, and holy poo poo, he can’t figure out how to put it on. He struggles with it, they cut away, they cut back and he’s just holding it to his ear like a buff, monotonic DJ. His commentary is a comedic highlight, with such insights as “He thinks he’s a martial artist. Black belts are to hold your pants up, not wear around your waist like…” (fades out without thinking of a simile) Tank lays out Flynn, rolls him in the ring… and The Wall covers for a three-count at 2:43. Can we go over those “Shoot Fight Rules” again, because I think you hosed it up, guys. Another title match is coming up! Jeff Jarrett vs. “Screaming” Norman Smiley for the U.S Title.  Norman wears his Hardcore Title like a waist-mounted Fedora. This ISN’T for the Hardcore Title, so the two of them… hit each other with trashcans. WCW logic at its finest. We get THE BIG WIGGLE, a spot where Jarrett needed LESS cowbell, and finally Jeff uses his most technical move.  *Tortured guitar sounds* Stroke finishes it at 2:31. Rating: 1/16th of a Cowbell. Funk and David Flair show up to place Jarrett under Citizens Arrest. We go to a commercial and return to see Funk hilariously hitting Jeff repeatedly with a trashcan lid. Nash and co. bring out Arn, threatening to “throw him in cement, right here”. So they used the commercial break to set up a Mob hit. These boys are EFFICIENT! This sets up a hardcore match at Souled Out between Nash and Funk for Terry’s commissionership. We’re also getting Funk vs Bret Hart tonight. Bet that made Bret happy. He nearly made 1/8th of a smile. Things get confusing as Terry’s brain short-circuits a little, so Bret has to help out by insinuating it’s going to be a Hardcore match. “I’m hard enough! And I’m hard to the core!” Dude, please share LESS right now.  The hardest Canadian in South Carolina. Meanwhile, Disco Inferno has apparently joined the Off-Brand Sopranos. He’s as terrible at extorting local businesses as you’d imagine. It’s time for Stevie Ray vs Midnight. This is the longest match so far, and by FAR the least interesting. It’s just Stevie Ray beating up on a woman at a glacial pace. Booker has been banned from ringside, so of course he runs in after a few minutes anyway. The world's shittiest rollup gets the “shock” win for Midnight at 4:42. Rating: Can we watch Disco Inferno try to run numbers, or something? Crowd Sign: The Filthey Animals. The South Carolina education system at work, folks. Post-match, Stevie Ray commits domestic abuse on both Booker and Midnight. Backstage, Juvy sets up Mean Gene with a young lady. Please don’t try to picture Gene Okerland naked.  Why does 2000 Rey Mysterio look ten years younger than Dominc Mysterio does NOW?  Speaking of Dominic, guess he has a half-sibling he doesn’t know about. DDP gets to cut a promo on Buff Bagwell  While dressing like the male escort Bagwell is today. He makes a lot of jokes about Buff’s tiny man-missile, resulting in a brawl. It’s 1000% better than the entire Stevie Ray match. Juvy’s taken over the backstage interview duties, meaning we hear a lot about Juice. Or possibly Jews, his accent is hard to decipher. It’s supposed to be Nash vs Bam Bam Bigelow next, but Chris Canyon randomly attacks Bigelow. So I guess Nash gets to NOT wrestle. Best night ever for Kev.  Kevin’s dream opponent. An unconscious one. Filthy Animals (with pre-pubescent Rey Mysterio) vs David Flair and Crowbar (with Daffney!) up next!  So you like David Flair AND don’t understand how magnets work? Your mom must have been so proud. Crazy Davy is wearing a lot of eyeliner, and pulling Crowbar's hair like a mean girl at daycare. Kidman and Crowbar have a minute-long mini-match, before Flair comes in for some basic stuff. Crowbar tries to tag in, tagging Billy rear end instead. Guess catering had a ton of booze tonight. David botches a CLOTHESLINE, which is one of the few wrestling moves I think I could do.  Rey is literally being booked as an anchor. Arn Anderson staggers out to hit Konnan with a crowbar. (Once again, not with Crowbar, dammit), Crazy Dudes retain in 4.07. Rating: ¼ of a Daffney Scream. Main Event time: Bret vs Funk!  “I’m too old for this poo poo.” *wrestles for another 20 years* Crowd Sign: Hardcore Hayely. There’s a double meaning in that, babe. Bret beats on Terry for a while, including a wince-inducing chairshot to the head, directly in front of a family with two small boys. Father-son bonding in the 2000’s was weird. Funk puts Bret in a cart full of crap, then tips him out on his head in an UGLY spot. He moonsaults himself onto his own cranium, which then gets another chairshot for good measure. How that man even REMEMBERED he was a wrestler by the end of the night is a miracle. Bret punches out Li’l Naitch, who sells better than 90% of the roster, so Arn Anderson tries to put on a ref’s shirt. David Flair takes it instead, as the nWo arrive to beat up Terry. Nash murders Flair on the outside, then ends the show by powerbombing Funk through the stage. It’s either a no-contest, or the match is still going on to this day. Well, that was terrible. One down, way too many to go.
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Jan 9, 2022 11:14
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This is a literary masterpiece.
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Jan 9, 2022 17:57
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I didn't realise PG13 were in WCW at any point. I know they had spells with ECW & WWF (weren't they in the original Nation of Domination?)
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Jan 10, 2022 02:48
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forkboy84 posted:I didn't realise PG13 were in WCW at any point. I know they had spells with ECW & WWF (weren't they in the original Nation of Domination?) Yeah, they used to rap over the Nation's theme when they came out.
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Jan 10, 2022 03:03
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forkboy84 posted:I didn't realise PG13 were in WCW at any point. I know they had spells with ECW & WWF (weren't they in the original Nation of Domination?) Yes, which resulted in JC Ice saying to Sandman "I've been on Wrestlemania, bitch, what have you done?" (Supposedly)
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Jan 10, 2022 03:09
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Coming up on next week's Thunder! The nWo Impodes! (Again!) Norman Smiley vs. a Car! A "Random Item on a Pole" match! And more rampant sexism than you can shake a stick at! (Even if the stick is On a Pole!) No idea what sort of schedule I'm posting these at, by the way. Probably closer to 2 a week, so long as I keep a few ahead of myself. (The reviewing doesn't take that long, but who can watch more than one episode of THUNDER a day?)
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Jan 11, 2022 22:45
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Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more. It’s January the 12th, 2000, Thunder has moved to Wednesday nights, and I’m sure the show will be a lot better than last weeks. Yes, I’m eternally optimistic. Terry Funk-related Nitro recapping starts us off, as WCW shakes a retirement home to give Jeff Jarrett opponents. George Steele! Tito Santana! And, uh… *whispers* Jimmy Snuka. With special guest referee Chris Ben… on second thoughts, let’s skip this intro, shall we? A billion fireworks later we’re on the air from Erie, Pennsylvania. Wasn’t that a 90’s TV show? Let’s check their latest news! Fire at the Blue Streak roller coaster, Omicron variant detected, Erie ranked 13th in state liquor sales. Time to pick up your game, folks!  Must have spent the liquor money on pyro. We’re four days out from Souled Out, so I’m expecting a lot of last-minute match-making. I wasn’t expecting to start with an actual match, as Vampiro gets sent out straight away. He plays hype man like he’s mainlined ALL the meth, until Crowbar and friends show up. Vampiro is all like, “gently caress this” and starts beating up everyone except Daffney. Crowbar kind-of saves Flair by leaping on everyone from the ring. David’s fine, I think Crowbar landed on his head.  Stay classy, Erie.  Or not. Sorry, Len. Daffney does her thing (looks cute and screams a lot) as Crowbar hits a nice flipping leg drop from the apron. It gets two. The weakest bit of interference by Flair lets Crowbar set up for a rana, Vamp just turns it into a top-rope powerbomb for the win at 2:05  *ear-piercing shrieks* Rating: ½ of David’s eyeliner budget. David beats down Vampiro, a much-recovered Arn Anderson shows up to place peacemaker. By punching Crowbar in the face. TONIGHT! An outdoor hardcore match (I think that’s called “a Redneck Family Gathering”) between Norman Smiley and Brian Knobbs. Also, an Evening Gown Match pitting Madusa against… Oklahoma. Kill me now.  And spare a bullet for Scott. Plus a three-way with Harlem Heat and Midnight. Not in that way, you pervert. AND, our first “On a Pole” match! That didn’t take long.  Took them hours to decide what to put up there, I'm guessing. WCW Champion, Depressed Bret Hart gets some promo time. He lets us know that he doesn’t know what the hell is going on. Join the club, Hitman.  “This is my happy face…” Fan Sign: “You Want Some Cum Get Some”. Wow, punctuation really would have helped, dude. Bret lets us know he’s left the nWo, with all the enthusiasm of a man picking his own firing squad members. Nash, Jarrett and Big Poppa Math Whiz show up to shout at Bret and the fans. Bret calls Kev “a big, tall piece of poo poo” in response. He’s Canadian, so I assume he apologised for that later. After a commercial, we get edited highlights of Brian Knobbs and Fit Finlay having a protracted walk-and-brawl on Nitro, which apparently was never screened. Time constraints, or classic WCW production fuckups? It ends with Meng and Norman Smiley forming a weird team for the run-in.  I don’t want this to be a tag-team, I want them to be life partners and get their own sitcom. Outdoor Hardcore Campionship Match next. It looks freezing, and it’s terribly lit. Norman’s screaming should help us keep track of him, of course. Knobbs put Norm through an inexplicably-placed outdoor table. They brawl into the parking lot, where someone accidentally drives into Norman.  “AGAIN?”-Rikishi. Snow shovel to the head and Nobbs gets the title at 3:00 Rating: All stars were summarily removed after Tony references the Junkyard Invitational. Backstage, the nWo and Bret have a standoff with baseball bats. But we can only see three seconds of it, as we head out to ringside. The Revolution (Shane Douglas, Saturn and Malenko) are heading out. Nitro replay of Saturn performing a huge splash off the set to put Rey through a table. Somewhere, a young Kevin Owens starts making plans to top that. Lots of shouting about the Filthy Animals ensues, until the boys abruptly switch gears and start berating Asia in the most sexist way possible. Because we didn’t have enough of that with Ferrara on the show. Mean Gene interviews Tank Abbot. Sadly any unintentional comedy gold is ruined by Jerry Flynn, who jumps Tank before he can say more than two words. Dick. “Flynn started it!” shouts Okerlund, like it’s a schoolyard slap fight. They both get arrested. Oh God, it’s the Evening Gown match. Okie is wearing a fetching black ensemble, and I want to tear my own eyes out.  My day was ruined, so here’s something to gently caress up yours, too. Crowd Sign: “Who’s that guy?” An rear end in a top hat, that’s who. Stacey Kebler wanders out distracting Oklahoma. So Madusa kicks him in the back of his stupid, stupid head. Best part of the show so far. Okie also has a bottle of barbeque sauce duct-taped to his leg, leading to Scotty Hudson shouting “There’s no time for condiments!”. But there’s always room for Jell-o, Scott. Ballshot for Oklahoma (yay!) and back suplex gets the win for Madusa in 2:05. The crowd boos Madusa for not getting her dress ripped off, because they’re WCW fans.. Rating: No stars as not enough ballsack punches for Ferrera. Post-match, Medusa gets stripped to her bra and covered in BBQ sauce. *sigh* Mean Gene interviews Madusa after the match, which seems like terrible timing. Okie gets a Cruiserweight title match at Souled Out, thus convincing me that I’m NOT watching the PPV’s for this recap series. And AGAIN we hear the production crew shout “CLEAR!” at the end of the segment. Are they trying to defibrillate Terry Funk? Back at ringside, the lights are off, and there’s a bell being tolled. Cool, is AC/DC about to play Highway to Hell? Oh no, it’s just Midnight’s entrance. Booker never even makes it to the ring as Stevie Ray hits him with a feather-light chairshot and drops the most-overused sexist slur of the night. We then get the same exact match between Stevie and Midnight as last week, and it’s no more interesting this time around. Booker revives after 90 seconds and saves Midnight. So Stevie gets himself counted out, but because there ”has to be a winner”, this apparently means Booker has to wrestle Midnight. I hate to tell WCW how wrestling works, but that is NOT the way wrestling works.  “Look, this’ll make sense in the edit! What do you mean we’re live?” They wrestle at three-quarter speed for a while until Stevie slapjacks Booker and shouts a tirade of such incomprehensible gibberish that even the closed captions read [indistinct] on three occasions. Midnight pulls an unconscious Booker on top of her for the win at 5:11. Rating: [Indistinct numbers] The nWo beat up on Bret some more, and the world’s least competent cops put Flynn and Tank in the same holding cell. Backstage, “Champagne ” Chris Kanyon hangs out with his lady friends. (stop giggling, his gimmick is literally The Chrisfather right now.) Champagne Bottle on a Pole Match time… Chris Kanyon versus Bam Bam Bigelow. The pole is about ninety-three feet high, so good luck with that, Bam Bam.  Are they keeping it cool in the upper atmosphere? We recap a December Nitro where Kanyon broke a bottle over Bigelow’s head, obviously cutting himself in the process. Bigelow drops Chris nuts-first on the ropes, probably changing his plans for the evening. Chris returns the favour by punching the Bigelow-sacks. They’re selling like an Ironman match after three minutes. One of the ladies of dubious morals distracts Bigelow, getting his tongue down her throat as a result. Eww.  Sucks to have multiple X chromosomes in the 2000’s, huh? Chris gets two off a “Mysteriously Unexplained Title Belt” shot and goes for the bubbles. He jumps off the turnbuckle and hilariously oversells a punch in the stomach by backflipping on the landing. Shawn Michaels must have been taking notes. Diving headbutt to nutsack and the Greetings from Asbury Park finishes it for Bigelow in 4:44. The Champagne survives, so I’m guessing it’ll be smashed over Bam Bam’s head any second now. Rating: ¼ of a bottle of cheap Prosecco. Fake Sting (ie. Lex Luger) runs-in on Bigelow, lights go out, and someone ties a crow to the ringpost. PETA is writing letters to this day. Chris gets the champagne, and yes, I’m a freaking psychic. I’m ignoring all the backstage BS with Terry Funk and “The Old Age Outlaws”, by the way.  Except to ask why Orindorf looks like a G.I Joe action figure on casual Friday. DDP/Buff recap, followed by a sit-down interview with Kimberley. I don’t care about this, so I fast-forward to see Sid being angry and sweaty in equal measures.  *constipated whispering* Jarrett and Nash head out to ringside. Yes, AGAIN. Jeff calls out Benoit, Sid comes instead. Someone better tell him he’s not Canadian. Benoit joins him, and a match(?) breaks out. I mean, the bell rang, then everyone started beating each other up. It’s a WCW Tornado Tag Clusterfuck! Jeff and Benoit fight out to the cheap seats while Sid chokes Nash, and the announcers start to plug the shiny new WCW.com website. Sad that it was outlasted by the Space Jam one. An actual tag match finally gets going, Iron Mike Tenay starts tying himself in knots by trying to do play-by-play and plug the PPV matches at the same time. The two smaller men do all the work, while Sid and Nash basically chill out on the apron and run interference. Pier-sixer finally breaks out, and it takes Nash interference, a title belt and the Stroke to win it for the heels at 5: 30 . Rating: 1/8 of Li’l Naitch’s hair care budget. Backstage, someone has punked out Scott Steiner. I hope the perpetrator has emigrated, Scott’s going to murder him. Twice. It was Brett Hart, of course. He gets a lead pipe and heads to the ring to shout at the nWo. Nash and Jarrett return with ball bats, there’s a standoff, and… well, who would have guessed, the run-in music plays. WAY too drat early, of course, as we cut backstage to Funk and Arrn, lighting a branding iron. Terry’s music fades out, almost apologetically. Everyone in the ring stands around awkwardly for ages until Terry finally shambles out. Arn has a bucket of water, which he throws on Bret for no readily apparent reason. It's to wash off Bret’s obvious “black eye” makeup, which causes Bret to turn on Funk and Snderson. Oh my God, what a swerve, Bret was still with nWo the whole time, who could have seen that coming?  Glad this 70-minute storyline had a happy ending. Half the known universe suddenly runs-in, and there’s a brawl that’s so confusing it’s obvious even the announcers don’t know what the fucks going on. We fade out as Terry and Kev wrestle unconvincingly over a sputtering branding iron. WE’LL SEE YOU AT SOULED OUT! Accrual, no you won’t, because I ain’t going to watch it.
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Jan 13, 2022 09:34
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I was at that one. It stunk. Vampiro/Crowbar was easily match of the night. The mics were barely audible for the live crowd, same for any video segments. When they went to show an interview with Stacy or Kimberly or whoever it was, they showed part of the hardcore match instead and it took them a bit to switch, because WCW. After the show ended, there was some more aimless brawling, people filtered backstage, the last to go ws Terry Funk, who had his pants around his ankles for some reason.
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Jan 15, 2022 01:10
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Xerzes posted:I was at that one. It stunk. Vampiro/Crowbar was easily match of the night. The mics were barely audible for the live crowd, same for any video segments. When they went to show an interview with Stacy or Kimberly or whoever it was, they showed part of the hardcore match instead and it took them a bit to switch, because WCW. After the show ended, there was some more aimless brawling, people filtered backstage, the last to go ws Terry Funk, who had his pants around his ankles for some reason. That reason: Terry Funk. On our NEXT Thunder: Crowbar attempts to meld with the earth's crust! Disco Inferno enjoys himself! And Mike Tenay loses track of time!
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Jan 16, 2022 23:34
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Distorted Kiwi posted:A billion fireworks later we’re on the air from Erie, Pennsylvania. Wasn’t that a 90’s TV show? Close! "Eerie Indiana", fun little show. Also this thread owns
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Jan 17, 2022 22:55
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DJExile posted:Close! "Eerie Indiana", fun little show. Thanks! And now, on with the show! Three weeks into 2000, and I’m already regretting this idea. But hey, we might have an amazing show full of twists and turns and five-star matches. Or I might just do a shot every ten minutes until it gets better. We cold open on a random door. If it cuts a promo, it’ll be more interesting than Sid and more coherent than Steiner. Behind it, WCW officials debate the future of the suddenly-vacant Heavyweight title, as there were apparently some shenanigans on either Souled Out or Nitro. Meanwhile, guess who’s showing up… why, yes, it IS the nWo, now with Commissioner Kevin Nash! You think the Commissioner would be early for the show. Or at least, on time. His quarterly performance appraisal is going to be brutal. We are TAPED from Evansville, Indiana! Checking out their local news I see a reported case of embezzlement at a trucking company, a car vs. house accident in which the house obviously won and holy poo poo, a worsening outbreak of syphilis. Someone get Ric Flair out of there, for his own safety! Forget the crowd signs, the first sweep of the fans gives us a shot of a young lady who appears to be Daffney’s hot Goth Stalker.  *faint screaming from backstage* And speaking of which, let’s send out the tag-team championship trio of Not-an-Actual-Crowbar, Captain Lack-of-Charisma and L’il Screamer. Daffney’s wearing David’s belt, which is great as I’d rather watch her do taxes than David wrestle.  Cut off the bottom third of your sign and I’ll sit next to you. Faux-Godfather music intros The Mamalukes, who enter along with Disco Inferno. Much hand-related gesturing from Big Vito. Or Johnny the Bull, I honestly have no idea who is who. I’m not being helped by the total lack of commentary on the match, as Disco and the boys just argue about the meaning of the phrase “Mamaluke”. As the Urban Dictionary’s entire definition is “Slang used by Italian-Americans”, I’m going to say it means “A pair of bald guys who like to punch people a lot.” Big Vito (as I finally find out) beats on David for a while and tosses him. Both Marmalukes take him to the floor and kind of gently shake him around a bit. Crowbar (who is looking disturbingly like Russell Brand here) tries to save him with a flipping senton that absolutely whiffs on everyone. Everyone sells like a hand grenade went off, so I guess it was from the shockwave of him splatting himself on the floor.  *Stuka noises* Crowbar hits a nice top-rope cross-body, but gets overpowered by the ‘Lukes. Johnny the Bull has lost his hat, making him look like Rey Mystrio on a ‘roid bender. Crowbar hits a Northern Lights Suplex, making Daffney scream so loud it sets off car alarms in neighboring suburbs. In an impressive leap, Johnny goes from the mat to the top turnbuckle in a single bound. Then empty-pools himself into oblivion.  “Well, I regret my life choices to this point.” Disco admonishes him for using high-risk moves, poking fun at his own move set in the process. Glad Disco’s having fun so far tonight. Crowbar hits a top-rope splash for 2, then a Lionsault. He also gets a two-count by rolling up the wrong guy in some typical WCW “Yeah, whatever” officiating. Flair tries to help out by getting the crowbar, then crowbars Crowbar by mistake. Impaler DDT from Vito and we have new tag champs at 9:42. TEN MINUTES on the Thunder card with no run-ins? Is everyone else backstage tied to chairs? Rating: 2 gold-plated crowbars.  Shoutout to the time-traveling Divas Champion fan in the front row. TONIGHT! It’s Berlyn vs. The Wall. If Alex Wright doesn’t bust out the techno dancing, I’m not interested. Also, DDP vs. Chris Kaynon for no apparent reason, other than “They used to hang out together”.. Backstage, Nash isn’t allowed into the meeting room. Yeah, go fill out paperwork, Mr. Commissioner! After a commercial, it’s ol’ Captain U.S.A himself, Hacksaw Jim Duggan. He’s in his beige boiler suit, so I assume he’s got some important plumbing to do. One woman is practically in a religious fervor over him. Hoo, lady. Hooo, indeed.  The Beige-est Patriot. Hooooo Count: Three and rising. Make it four. Curt Henning shows up to rebut. Jim invites him down to the ring for an impromptu match, which is so impromptu the referee is in the ring BEFORE Curt gets there. Guess he was just chilling on the apron or something. Jim slams him and gives him a wind-up punch. Curt launches himself over the ropes like Apollo 11 taking off, of course.  “Houston, we have an overselller.” It goes back-and-forth, with Jim eye-acting like a bad silent movie star. Curt wipes out the ref and goes for the 2x4. Then takes out the ref a second time just to be a dick. No contest, as Jim’s music plays at 2.53 while Curt just wanders back to the locker room. HOOO Count: 40 or so. Backstage, the nWo bully a computer nerd as they try to hack into the meeting. The Harris brothers appear to have joined the nWo since last week, making them 10% less cool and 15% more racist. Another break and we’re back to see 3-Count (hopefully deliberately) missing their cue in the ring. Not deliberate is the announce team’s microphones being at about 10% volume. We’re treated to the usual array of terrible dancing as Mike and Tony chat inaudibly. Why could this never happen to Mark Madden? Things improve immensely as Norman Smiley arrives in martial arts gear to dance behind the boys.  Norman joins the new boy band, UNSYNCED. He tosses Evan, launches Shane Helms out on him and gives Shannon a BEAUTIFUL spinning body slam. He also demonstrates the “spanking the invisible woman's while doing her up the butt dance”, which gets a bigger pop than both of Stevie Ray’s last two matches combined. Crowd Sign: “You’re Not the Rock”. But I believe IT DOESN’T MATTER IF HE’S NOT THE ROCK! Norman cuts a promo about how Hardcore he is, and challenges anyone to face him. Tank Abbott answers that in VERY short order. Norman quickly “Finds his Scream”, getting punched into the middle of next week’s Thunder by Tank.  He should wake up around segment three. Backstage, Nash sends The Harris Boys off to get information on the meeting. Jarrett tries to tell them “that does not mean get beer”, but has to repeat the line like, four times, as Nash keeps talking over him. This is a taped show and THAT was the best take you had? Wrasslin’ time! It’s a three-way dance that seems to have been booked by pulling names out of a hat. First up, Lash Leroux, aka “Pre-Shrunk Chris Jericho”. Then Psychosis, aka “Great, the guy who hangs out with Juvy.” Mr. Juice cuts his usual incomprehensible Rock rip-off promo, which dies on its arse. Even the commentary team point out that the crowd had no idea what he was saying, Tenay puts in a request for subtitles next time, Luckily the Network DOES have subtitles, so I could learn Juvy somehow came up with this phrase. “So tonight, The Juice is going to be with the house, and the house is going to be with him!” I’m confused.  *crickets* Our third man is Chavo Guerrero, Jr. He has a briefcase as he’s some sort of marketer now. From the bell Lash is happy to let the other two do some lucha stuff, while he just hangs out in the ring. Not a great plan, as they eventually attempt to decapitate him with clotheslines. Chavo just MURDERS Psychosis with an Alabama Slam as the usual three-way pin-stopping show begins.  The new thrill-ride at Six Flags Chavo. Lash goes up and launches a frog splash at both guys. As they were standing up, he basically goes straight between and lands so hard he’ll be thinking it’s the morning after Mardi Gras. Everything in this match is typically crisp and high-paced, so I’m sure these guys will be raring for a shot at the new Cruiserweight Champion… Oklahoma. I’m starting to hate that word so much I’m going to boycott the musical. Psychosis gets the win in 5: 06, after a top-rope legdrop on Lash. Rating: 1 Lash Leroux (Energetic, but a little short) A clean finish, and no run-ins! IT’S A NEW ERA OF THUNDER! Back from the break, everything’s gone purple. Guess we’re getting to see The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Iukea. That’s going to be a bitch to type out. He’s up against Billy Kidman, so it’s obviously Cruiserweight Night here on Thunder. The Artist has what looks like a drawn-on beard.  Tell me I’m wrong. TAFKAPI (as Scott calls him) gets a little gay, so Kidman hate-crimes him to the mat. TAFKAPI takes over, doing his very best Prince (or the worst Velveteen Dream) before dropping a headbutt directly into Billy’s Kidmans. We’re cool with that, ref? Cool. Run-in after 90 seconds! (Welcome back, typical WCW) It’s Tori Wilson! The team gets all “drooling hornbag” in an instant.  Judging by her outfit, she headed there straight from a funeral. Crowd Sign: “Show Me Your Puppies”. You’re at the wrong show, Jerry. TAKAPI goes out to the apron, slipping and nearly falling off in the process. Luckily he stays up, as he went out there so Tori could drag him off to the floor. Way to nearly gently caress that one up, Prince Doofus. Short Powerbomb finishes off TAFKAPI in 4:00 Rating: ¼ of the Batman Soundtrack. Terry Taylor is headed to the ring to tell us what’s happening with the Heavyweight title! I’m betting on a tournament, because it’s the year 2000.  “Bwuck.” I’m wrong, it’s a single match at Nitro. Nash gets to pick one challenger against The Scariest Man in the Universe, Sid Vicious. Nash is out in three seconds to bitch out Taylor. He sets up a “warm-up” match of Jarrett vs. Sid on Monday, then picks Sid’s actual opponent. It’s himself, of course. Bet that was a high-flying masterpiece. Backstage, Nash sets up tonight’s main event. It’s a tag match with Lex Luger & Sid vs Booker T and Big T. I’d literally forgotten about Big T. (Future Kiwi: And forgot he was Ahmed Johnson, too!) Way to pick ‘em, Kev. Berlyn vs. The Wall is next! Someone in the crowd instantly starts an “AL-EX WIGHT!” chant, then initiates a “BOR-ING!” chant. Guess that guy’s a Goon. The match is all Alex leaping off things and The Wall doing power movies. Right up until the moment Alex Leapfrogs up to the buckle, slips off and falls on his arse. That gets a pop Juvy could only dream of.  “Scheiße!” The commentators are ignoring this blow-off match to talk about Nash vs. Sid. The stipulation has been added that if Sid loses to Jarrett, Kev gets the title without having to wrestle. It’s the MOST Kevin Nash idea! The Wall wins with a Big Boot after 5:09 of non-descript wrestling Rating: Es gibt hier nichts zu sehen. Backstage DDP sys something to Kimberley, who says something back. The boom operator was apparently in the next state over, so I have no idea what that was about. Oklahoma’s on his way to the ring. Pardon me while I drown myself in barbeque sauce. He relinquishes the Cruiserweight title. Even his HAT seems to be sweating. Madusa heads out, wearing an outfit apparently designed by an aluminium siding company.  One with a product shortage She cuts a stumbling promo, before Sherri Martel backjumps her. The roll into the ring and the bell rings, so I’m now assuming you could get in an impromptu match just by LOOKING at a referee.  God’s perfect creation. Sherri goes up to the same corner as Berlyn did, and she too slips off it. Guys, whoever over-did the baby oil has to apologize to Sherri. Medusa hits her with a suplex and pins her in 1:10. Well, welcome back, I guess. Rating: 1/7000th of a star for making Sherri job that fast. Post-commercial, we cut back to Nash failing to complete a sentence, while getting a backrub by a lady who appears to have a serious plastic surgery addiction. It’s 15 seconds of abject pointlessness. Jerry Lynn vs Fit Finlay is our next obvious filler match. Buzzkill is wandering around in the crowd advocating peace and love.  These signs send a conflicting message. Number of signs now proclaiming someone is gay: At least 3. It’s like being in a public wrestling room on late-90’s Yahoo Chat. Knobbs wanders out after a couple of minutes The World's Least Perceptive referee ignores the sound of Knobbs beating up Flynn on the outside, who basically no-sells everything. Inadvertent kendo shot to Finlay’s skull hands the win to Flynn at 4:00. Maybe don’t mentor a guy with terrible depth perception, Fit. Rating: This match wasn’t fit (see what I did there?) to rate. Kimberley’s breasts leave the locker room, followed shortly after by Kimberley herself. The Kaynonfather (with his ladies) vs DDP (With Kimberley) is up next, after a quick heel promo from Chris. Make that a LONG promo.  Pimpin’ getting less easy by the second. He tries to blow off the match, so DDP sends out Kimberley to distract Chris with her knockers. REALLY not sure that’s going to work, to be honest. DDP emerges from the crowd and takes Chris from pillar to post. Kaynon turns the tide rapidly, which is handy as we’re REALLY running out of time for the main event. Chris delivers a kind-of Fame Asser onto the steps and tries to get DDP counted out. Thirteen minutes left in the show. Ugly-rear end body-block off the top, DDP ends up wearing Chris for a hat. Uranage gets 2 for DDP. Pumphandle Driver gets 2 for Kaynon. His lawyer gets up on the apron with a steel briefcase, they gently caress up the spot and Chris basically headbutts the guy rather than hitting the international object. It gets 2. DDP gets his nuts mule-kicked into space, but manages to hit a top-rope powerbomb. It gets 2. Finally Kaynon bends over to pick up the briefcase, DDP hits a running Diamond Cutter for the win at 6:09.  “Tell my ladies I love themmmmmmm…” Rating: Fun, if pointless. The Main Event has to be next, we’ve got 10 minutes left if we’re lucky. But first, more nWo pointlessness as Steiner gets to scream tonight’s over-used catchphrase, “WHAT KIND OF MAN ARE THEY?”. Great input, you Genetic Weirdo. Lex Luger’s intro music sounds like a moderately-talented seven-year-old trying to play “Chariots of Fire” from memory. Holy gently caress, that’s atonal! Meanwhile, Big T comes out to Booker’s music. Confusing. By the time the intros are done there’s less than 6 minutes of the show remaining. Which means we got 50% more screen time for Daffney than we did for Sid Vicious. I can’t argue with that, somehow. Everyone stalls for a while, lockup, staredown. This feels familiar. Test of strength, Big T fakes out Sid and there’s more standing around. T tags in Booker, more stalling. The referee has expended more energy than the wrestlers so far. Sid tags in Luger against his will, we finally get a lockup and shoulder block with two minutes of Thunder left. Midnight cheapshots Luger, Nash arrives to gloat. We get a LONG shot of Nash as Tenay gives us the “We’ll see you on NITRO!” wrap-up with the match still in progress. Hilariously, there’s still a minute left, so we cut back to the ring, meaning Mike has to awkwardly start calling the action again.  “We’re apparently out of time, no wait, we’re not, we’ll see you at…” *static* Big T slapjacks Booker, Torture rack from Luger and it’s over, we’ll see you on Nitro. Again. Rating: I’m just glad it’s over. Again. Well, a couple of vaguely entertaining matches this week, before the show descended into the usual farce. Should have guessed. Distorted Kiwi fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Jan 18, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2022 23:10
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On our NEXT exciting episode of Thunder, Norman Smiley goes full Vegas! The stunning in-ring debut of the KISS Demon! And Kevin Nash turns into Scott Steiner for a second. Well, post-recap research is showing me just how big of a shitshow WCW was at this point in time. The main event of Souled Out was changed at the last minute, with no Bret (retirement) or Jarrett (injury) available. So we came within INCHES of... Tank Abbott, WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Cooler heads prevailed, Russo was asked to change jobs and walked out instead, Kevin Sullivan got the book, put the belt on Benoit, Benoit quit the next day. Distorted Kiwi fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 22:32
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Distorted Kiwi posted:Cooler heads prevailed, Russo was asked to change jobs and walked out instead, Kevin Sullivan got the book, put the belt on Benoit, Benoit quit the next day. Schiavone (I think?) on the Nitro after that going,"Well after last night's PPV we don't have a champion...." was hilarious because anybody who didn't watch the PPV (99.9999999999% of the wrestling world) would have assumed there was an angle to leave the title up in the air on the show. Anybody who did watch it would be thinking,"But.... Benoit won the title last night.....?"
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Jan 22, 2022 23:03
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It’s Wednesday night in late January, the year 2000! It’s time! It’s time! It’s, THUNDER! TIME! That was way too many exclamation marks for an episode of Thunder. Let’s get started. Previously, on.. Some indeterminate show of the past, the nWo wastes more of WCW’s money by spray-painting and then crushing Sid’s car with a Monster Truck. With Sid in it. Tough break. He sells attempted vehicular manslaughter by running in at 300mph to attack Brett. He IS wearing a neckbrace, so I guess the monster truck attack missed all his vital organs.  Sid survived by hiding in the glove compartment. More recapping, as we get to see Sid on Nitro having his “roadblock match '' with Jeff Jarrett. Oh wait, no we don’t, he instead has to face the Harris Brothers for reasons that are never adequately explained. Was the Jarrett match deemed “potentially entertaining”, so they subbed in the dullest twins in wrestling? Nash vs Sid for the title! Sid is banned from using the powerbomb, so he “outsmarts'' Nash.  Yes, this guy outsmarted someone. He does that by waiting until Jarrett does the obligatory run-in, then stealing his guitar and murdering Kevin with it. New and terrifying champion! We’re coming to you this week from Las Vegas, Nevada! (Hey, I think I’ve heard of that place!) Still going to check the latest news, though. Looks like the legendary Peter Luger Steakhouse is going to open there soon. Some dude from California wins $120k playing poker, and will “pay some bills” with it. Guess he brought two aspirins off the U.S Health System if $120k only pays “some” bills. And Hard Rock International announces plans for a guitar-shaped hotel. Hope Nicholas Cage doesn’t crash a plane full of wise-cracking criminals into it.  If he does, someone please save Gene’s suit. “Caged Heat”, aka “Legally Distinct Hell in a Cell” is hanging over the ring. Better hang it on a pole for maximum WCW-ness. We kick off with Mean Gene interviewing the new champion in the ring. Crowd Sign: “Sid is my Millinium Man”. Well, that kid’s out of the spelling bee. Quite a decent-looking crowd, but it’s Vegas, so they probably got drunk and thought they bought tickets for Penn and Teller. Sid looks like he just leapt out the shower… Dude, how are you this sweaty just walking out?  Was it raining backstage? He cuts a promo that instantly turns into a classic Sid tirade of unconnected thoughts all jostling to be the first word out of his mouth. Nash and company head out to the stage (am I in wrestling Groundhog Day?), and it appears they’ve added four random ladies and a returning Scott Hall to their ranks. Nash plays the old “You pinned the wrong twin” gimmick to try to claim the belt back off Sid. (via some unaired Nitro footage showing Sid being counted out after the end of the match) It’s Kevin Nash’s new gimmick, The Pedantic rear end in a top hat!  Scott Hall’s entire contribution to tonight’s show. Ring Announcer David Penzer is charged with taking the belt off Sid, which happens without Sid powerbombing him to China. Tonight, it’s going to be a Triple-threat Caged Heat match between Nash, Sid and Interchangeable Harris Brother #1 (Ron, apparently) for the belt, no powerbombs allowed, Sid has to pin Nash and Nash only to regain the title. We’re slightly over-complicating this, fellas. Also tonight, Luger vs Buff Bagwell! Kidman vs Vampiro! Bigelow vs Finlay and 3-Count vs. The Marmalukes and Disco!  Once Shannon works out which way the camera is aimed. But first, more chit-chat as Gene catches up with The Maestro, a Gorgeous George/Liberace knock-off with a bad attitude and an annoying accent.We go to commercials, because who needs any wrestling in a wrestling show? Backstage, the nWo talk over each other, with Steiner talking up his Vegas sexual shenanagins. I REALLY didn’t need that image in my head. Looks like we’re finally getting a match, as The Maestro is mincing his way to the ring. A million showgirls bring in his opponent, and it’s Norman Smiley in a white tuxedo. Well, this show just peaked 18 minutes in.  I’m not kidding. Showgirl-assisted Big Wiggle, Maestro takes offence and this one is on. It’s a Hardcore match, which explains the chairshot Norman throws ten seconds in. He gets tossed into a convenient ladder. Chairshots all around as Norm and ‘Stro fight backstage.Noman puts the Maestro through a table ninety seconds into the match, then accidentally runs into the Kiss Demon emerging from an ornate coffin. Norman screams, faints and is pinned in 1:54.  Should have worn the BROWN pants. Rating: Rate WHAT? I’ve had nights where I spent longer throwing up. Backstage, the nWo play blackjack and look at silicone boobs. Three-second recap of the first Cruiserweight Championship tournament match on Nitro. TAFKAPI (and Paisley) head to ringside to face Kid Romeo . Apparently this is a tournament match, but WCW seems reluctant to show us the brackets. Not saying they’re booking it on the fly, but I’m guessing whoever shows up next under the weight limit gets a shot.  “Kid on the left, you’re up! Get in the ring!” “Standards and Practices'”, aka Lenny and Lodi, aka The West Hollywood Blondes, wander out to watch the match. Then wander off again, leaving Stacey Keibler behind. The announcers lose focus on the match, due to her gams. Interference from Paisley means it’s over in 2:55 of nothing-to-see-here, TAFKAPI advances. Rating: 1/8th of the end credits of “Under the Cherry Moon”. Backstage, More blackjack, more nWo, more pointless overlapping dialogue. Management should NOT be serving Scott Hall drinks. Wayne Newton arrives in a pointless cameo.  The only guy that makes a shot with the Harris Boys interesting. Oh good, it’s the KISS Demon. I mean, Oh God, it’s the KISS Demon. “We’re looking for good things from him!” shouts Tony. Keep looking, dude. It’s his in-ring debut, and the crowd is thrilled. Or comatose, I always get those confused. Pyro galore.  There should be a real-time graphic showing how much money this is wasting. His opponent: Terry Funk. This seems like a weird clash of styles. Punch, punch, headbutt and the Demon is the one doing all the selling. Way to look strong in your first match, get shitkicked by a senior citizen. Back-to-back neckbreakers for 2. Demon low-blows Funk after Terry starts trying to punch out referee Nick Patrick. Terry grabs an abdominal stretch, rolls the Demon around the ring (With a Kiwi Roll, “direct from Australia”, which makes me grumpy) and… pins him with a cradle in 2:56.  What. The. Funk? How do you hype up a guy that much, then job him out in his first match? Rating: ¼ of a cancelled push. Vampiro/Kidman II is next, a rematch from the previous Nitro. Billy is accompanied by Torri Wilson in sparkly spandex, so expect the commentary team to lose their train of thought frequently.  Doubly so after this lingering shot by the director. Arena appears to be chilly. Vampiro dominates Billy Kidman like my kid beating me in 2K19 for a while and they fight to the floor. Billy charges Vamp, gets tossed in the air and lands face-first on the announce desk. Okay, ow. Vampiro goes up and manages to lightly mess up Billy's hair with a spinning kick attempt. Billy plays “plucky underdog” for a while, getting a few two-counts off rollups before reversing a Powerbomb (of course) and heading up, Vampiro catches him and hits a top-rope proto-Falcon’s Arrow for the win at 4:01. Rating: 1.5 gimmicky rollups. Okay match, just half the length it should have been. Elsewhere, Luger and Liz head to ringside. Lex has a Sting-branded chair he’s hitting for emphasis, which wakes my cat up from her 14th nap of the day. Nice one, Lex.  Liz arrived directly from her job at the building site. Also backstage, the nWo continue to be the in-house Poochie, as apparently we always need to know where they are and what they’re doing. It’s presumably the top of the hour, as it’s time for Luger (with Liz and his horrible, horrible off-brand Vangelis theme) vs. Buff Bagwell. Fan Sign: Uff Lock Luster. Your “B” is slightly indistinct on TV, sir. We get more posing than a World Bodybuilding Federation Pay-Per-View from the lockup.  The baby oil budget for this match alone must have taken half the usual Thunder budget. Both guys are so jacked it’s like watching 80’s action figures fight. Nothing interesting happens until Buff hits a back elbow and jumps to the middle rope. Lex helpfully falls on his back for NO reason and lies there long enough to be hit with a splash. Well, that didn’t look unnatural at all! Buff hits the Blockbuster, Liz jumps in and hits him with a baseball bat to draw a DQ at 4:03. I swear to God the ring introductions took longer than the match. Rating: Zero. Would rather watch 4 minutes of footage of my own dental surgery. Beatdown, commercial, time to shill the Nitro Grill. Previously, 3-Count were there to sign autographs, but of course, no-one’s interested. The fact they’ve got their table set up in what appears to be Jigsaw’s utility closest may not be helping things.  “Would you like to play a game?” The Marmalukes show up for a meeting of the minds. They come to blows, and we head back to ringside for some bad pelvis-thrusting by 3-Count. The Marmalukes cut them off, which I assume makes them the face for this match? (Seriously, I can’t tell who we’re supposed to be cheering for in this match. Except Disco, or course.) Fan Sign: “The Mamaluchs”. Even Mike Tenay has to call out the spelling on that one. As usual, Shannon nearly kills himself by diving out of the ring a foot left of Johnny the Bull, who has to stretch to catch him. Shane Helms launches a senton bomb from the top rope onto Vito’s head at ringside. Slow your roll, Hurricane, it’s just Thunder, for gently caress’s sake!  “Whoops!” The crowd even starts chanting “boring” once the match gets going in the ring. Some boy-bands get no respect, I’m tellin’ ya! Shane gets brutalised by the ‘Lukes, with Johnny power-pressing him a few times before hefting him towards the lights. Shane lands on both knees, making me wince in sympathy. Disco gets tagged in, which is always a mistake. Dad-Dancing elbow drop fails to connect, Evan tags in. Pier-sixer breaks out, the ‘Lukes give Shannon a double back slam so hard it’s probably a felony in several states. A guy in an nWo shirt is having the best time of anyone in Vegas right now.  More complimentary drinks for the guy in the front row, please. Swinging neckbreaker from Disco and Shannon eats the pin at 3:59. Y’know, these guys were in their 20’s, I’m sure they had the stamina for more than a four-minute match, Mr Booker. Rating: ¼ of the time it takes to say “Backstreet’s Back, all right”, because that’s how long the match was. Backstage, Funk and Arn look for Sid and the nWo have had their gaming tables confiscated, so they sit around in an awkwardly-posed group and shout at each other. Kevin yells something so bizarre I back up and turn on the subtitles. They’re full of [Indistinct] words, so I THINK he shouted; “Did we bibbly-bopbopbop German’s bomb Pearl Harbour?” Uh, good question Kev. He tries to follow it up with an even more incomprehensible question about Lee Harvey Oswald. Dude, leave the gibberish to Steiner, he’s better at it than you. Back to ringside in time to see Jerry Lyyn blindside Booker T. They have a match that’s stuck in fast-forward, with the Axe Kick, Spinarooni and an ugly Alabama Slam pinning combo ending it in 1:55. Rating: No idea, I was still typing about Kevin’s mouth-explosion, and it was over.  “Can I dig it? No, there’s no time, sucka.” There’s 21 minutes of airtime with a Heavyweight title cage match booked, so let’s… send out The Cat. His momma having been duly notified first, I believe. nWo Guy has a sign reading “Cat Bo”. Somewhere Billy Blanks nods serenely. Two drunk white guys do some white-guy dancing to the Cat’s James Brown-alike theme song. It's more entertainment than the show has provided all night. Cat plays both face and heel at the same time, loving Vegas, hating it’s “fat, out of shape fans”. The camera pauses on a woman with lips so Botoxed she looks like she tried to French-Kiss a Blue-Ringed Octopus. He bitches out two obvious plants in the crowd, who have gone to the Jim Carey School of Subtle Acting, then starts dancing. He’s no Nitro Girl, sadly. Well, that was three minutes we could have given to Norman Smiley or 3-Count.  Nice shoes, though. Backstage, Gene talks to Kimberly yet again. I’m still less interested in this as I am in trigonometry. Sixteen minutes left to run, so it’s main event… oh, gently caress me, it’s Fit Finaly vs. Bam Bam next! Why did you even pay someone to set up the cage if you’re going to use it for like, three minutes? A table comes out 90 seconds into the match as the announcers say this is for a shot a the Hardcore title at Superbrawl. Fit goes for his wrench, but Knobbs has picked his pocket backstage. Greetings from Asbury Park abruptly finishes it in 1:47 seconds, even though Bam Bam had Fit’s head so far off the mat that he must have been knocked out by an exceptionally thick oxygen molecule.  Or via heavy contact with Bam Bam’s junk. Rating: If it’s under two minutes, who gives a poo poo? Also, don’t take the time to set up a table if you’re not going to use it, jerks. The Main Event introductions start with like, 12 minutes left in the show. So there’s time for recaps of the recaps of Nitro we recapped earlier tonight. It’s a 2-on-1 punchathon to start off, with the occasional “throw Sid into the cage” breaks. Ron chokes out Sid with a camera cable as Nash just kind of watches. A series of pin attempts get 2, until Nash remembers he can do more than just punch Sid and starts dropping elbows. Sid makes the SuperSid comeback four minutes in before Harris beats him down and Nash just steps on his nutsack for a while.  Aka “The Boys Choir Stomp”. Nash pauses to discuss strategy with Harris and Sid, doing so loudly he might as well have flashed “Sid’s going to block this move” on the Jumbotron. Sid blocks a move, cleans house and gives Harris a chokeslam so low I don’t know why he bothered. Nash drops the straps, Sid suddenly slaps a crossface on him that looks like a vicious scalp massage Nash INSTANTLY taps at 7:06. I do remember Nash saying Sid had to “pin” him, so I assume next week he strips the belt again on a technicality. With seconds to go, Ric Flair shows up to applaud Sid. Nice of you to show up for four seconds, Ric. Guess he ran out of chips.  I barely had time to screencap him. We’re outta here, we’ll see you next week for whatever crap WCW has brewing in their brains.
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Jan 23, 2022 10:10
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On our next exciting episode of Thunder, the worst tag team name since the Ding Dongs! Norman Smiley goes metal! And way too many Sid matches! I’m back to work after my post-Christmas vacation, so expect these recaps in a weekly basis from here on.
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Jan 27, 2022 23:58
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It’s February the 2nd in the year 2000 and Thunder is back on the air! The anticipation (Of me needing a stiff drink at lunchtime) is building! Previously on Nitro, Jeff Jarrett books himself against Sid at Superbrawl, because apparently he gets to pick the matches now. As Kevin Nash had that responsibility just a few days earlier, I’m assuming there’s been some sort of hilarious Freaky Friday body-swapping going on. Meanwhile, Ric Flair is here and he’s apparently fallen face-first into a pile of cocaine. Sid shouts a lot, Ric and Terry Funk hit each other and Jeff beats the champ in a six-man match with (you guessed it) a guitar shot to the head. Well, that recap was edited like the movie TORQUE, so trigger warning if you suffer from seizures, I guess.  These fireworks won't help. We are LIVE (at the time of taping) from Binghamton, New York, which sounds like a made-up place to me. Let’s check out their local news! Local drag queen to appear on “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”! Cyclone Izzy is about to bury the place in snow! And three local restaurants closed due to sexual assault allegations. Cancel the road trip to Broome County, foks. Steel cage above the ring for the second week in a row. The nWO arrives en masse, missing only Nash, who apparently broke his ankle at a house show the week before. Well, that answers that question. Quite spectacular timing, Kev. Scott Hall teases a “Hey yo”, then hands the microphone to Steiner. Turn the volume down, Scott’s got some screamin’ to do. He’s apparently your “hiccup” this week, so holler if you *hic* hear him.  Somewhere, a dialogue coach is crying. He hands it off to some guy called “Jeff Jert”. Jeff talks while walking, making Scott Hall chase him around to point at him. Okay, I enjoyed that little bit of improv from Scott. Jeff sets up a Triple Threat Theater, meaning we get to see Sid wrestle three times in two hours. Look how happy that makes me.  Scott Hudson-level happy, that’s how much. The matches are as follows; Submission Match against Mike Rotundo Hardcore match versus Rick (woofwoofwoof) Steiner Handicap Caged Heat against The Harris Brothers So once again, the world’s least interesting tag team gets to main event Thunder. Remind me why this company went under, again? Also tonight, DDP vs The Machine! Vampiro vs. The Wall vs. Kidman. One of these things is not like the others. Crazy Davy & Crowbar take on the Mamalukes once more! The Demon vs Norman Smiley, apparently because Norman stole the Demon’s jacket on Nitro. The Demon used his demonic powers to… call the cops on him and have a Benny Hill-style chase around the arena. Gotta love a feud over accessories. Also on Nitro, Flair and Funk got in a donnybrook, so they're facing off at Superbrawl. I will point out that the combined ages of the two in 2000 was 105 years of age. Nice to see them pushing the younger talent.  At least Rusty is having fun. Speaking of aging wrestlers, Hulk Hogan’s return is teased. Yay. Backstage, the nWo finds an easily-bribable referee for Superbrawl. You’re not supposed to admit to being corrupt on camera, dude. Once again, it takes Screamin’ Norm to liven up the show, as he turns up in full KISS demon costume. He does need to ask for a smaller size of bondage gear next time. The Demon gets to arrive from his coffin, which seems like he’s over-thinking his entrance in this wardrobe-related blood feud.  Norman and Penzer share makeup tips. The Demon disrobes Smiley from the bell and messes up his facepaint. C’mon, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Good crowd reaction for Norman getting his pants ripped off, revealing his smiley-face underoos. The Demon beats Norm from pillar to post until Norm suddenly slaps on “The Norman Conquest”, a crossface chickenwing and… gets the win in 1:55. Rating: YOU try rating a sub-two minute match to blow off a 48-hour long feud, smartguy. Barely worth the time it took to put on their facepaint.  Bet you wish YOU had a five-minute workday. Backstage, Lenny and “Idol” (née Lodi) get thirty seconds on TV to complain that they’re not getting any time on TV. After being on LAST week’s TV show as “Standards and Practices”. (and after being taken of TV for six months to get over the whole “Get beaten up because we’re gay” fiasco.) They also come up with a new tag-team name, 2 Excess. Or possibly 2XS, if they’re trying to be ‘00’s cool. Oh God, I looked it up, and yes, they did spell it “2XS”. Hopefully they licensed some S-Express for their music.  Was 2-Lame taken? Our first Sid match is up! He’s pretty over with the fans, at least. Either that, or they’re just glad the pyro is going off to warm up the arena. Sid gets all snuggly with an elderly lady on the way to ringside. Dawwww. Sid pumps up the crowd, looking like he’s trying to practice his backstroke, as Mike Tenay plugs SHUTTER SPEED, starring Sting and Daisy Feuntes. I checked out the publicity pictures, and it’s everything you HOPED an action movie starring Sting could look like.  Submission match gets under way, with both guys going a million miles an hour. Figure-four by Mike less than a minute in, Sid reverses it. STF gets slapped on, and somewhere John Cena is relieved that SOMEONE has a worse-looking one than him. (Mike’s just kind of draping his forearm over Sid’s chest)  STWTF? Chokeslam from Sid, Mike pops straight back up and punches him in the ‘nads. Did he learn that at the University of Syracuse? Sid shrugs it off and applies the crossface for the win in 2:38. Not sure sub-three minute matches are going to wear Sid out as much as you hoped for, Jeff. Rating: ¼ of a sloppy STF Backstage, Vampiro talks to Gene. Someone hit his loving music! After the break, we FINALLY get to see the Cruiserweight tournament brackets. In the second round so far, Psychosis, TAFKAPI and Lash Leroux. The last of the first-round matches is Shannon Moore vs Shane Helms. Ooooh, inter-boy band biffo! One of them is going to say “Bye, bye, bye!” (Yes, even I want to hit myself in the face for that one) But first, 3-Count stands in their green circles to waste everybody’s time. Evan’s on commentary as Shannon and Shane start trying to creatively maim each other. Shane gets tosed right away, so Shannon launches a suicide tope on him as Mike Tenay makes “...NOT!” jokes.  Hey Evan, OPEC called, they would like to buy your chest oil. Frog splash gets 2 for Shane before he nearly breaks Shannon’s hip on a suplex. Madusa is apparently backstage, having not been seen “for several weeks”. In other words, she wasn’t here for ONE episode of Thunder, oh no, callout the feds! Well, if her not appearing meant Oklahoma wasn’t on Thunder, I have no problem with that. Shane plants Shannon with a gutwrench suplex and goes to the top. Spinning senton bomb and he eats the canvas with full force.  Marvel’s new hero, Kamikaze Kid. They’re having a nice little mini-match, and the crowd is making 1/10th the noise they did for Sid. Crowd sign: “I want RAW”. Wait a year, you’ll have no other choice. Shannon wins with a Backslide Driver in 3:29. Rating: Meh. So little time it was just two decent young wrestlers looking like they were practicing their spots. The boys hug afterwards, but get cut off by the usual nWo shenanigans. Medusa shows up in a patriotic bikini with a fur-lined lower half, perfect for when you have both swimming AND ice skating planned. She’s “sick of staying at home”, apparently. Somewhere, Lenny Poffo ironically cashes another cheque. Medusa wants a match, so Jarrett asks Scott Steiner what he thinks. This is a mistake, as Scott rambles off something in indecipherable Steiner-ese. Helpful!  “Flabedbab shcwap deep doop, Jeff.” Finally, Hulk Hogan emerges from the limo he’s been sitting in for over half an hour. He’s in red-and-yellow, so I’m predicting he’ll be monochromatically-dressed by the end of the night. Back with the nWo, Jarrett makes Oklahoma head of the women’s division. This is a war crime in progress. Kidman vs. Vampiro vs The Wall is next. Billy’s carrying a camcorder and has Tori with him. Please don’t tell me they’re doing a sex tape angle. The flyweights double-team The Wall and toss him, so Vampiro starts demonstrating suplexes on Kidman. Mr. Wall lumbers back in, gorilla-presses Kidman and throws him up so high I’m surprised he didn’t get served a pack of peanuts while he was up there.  First guy to end up in the rafters since Sting. More teamwork sets up The Wall in the corner, Kidman runs at Vampiro for some sort of badly-communicated double-team that results in Kidman being body dropped at about a 20-degree angle onto his face at The Wall’s feet. I THINK The Wall was supposed to move out of the corner so Kidman could land on him with a hurricanrana, but regardless, it looked painful!  “So many regretttttts!” Tori distracts the ref, so Kidman chairshots The Wall. Twice. Very loudly, while standing one foot away from the referee, who’s not just corrupt, but also hearing impaired. Vamp wants the chair, so Kidman kicks it into his face. The Wall has no-sold two chairs to the cranium, chokeslamming Kidman out of the ring. Tough day at the office. Vamp and The Wall fight it out on the top turnbuckle, The Wall chokeslams him off for the win at 2:38. (Dropping Vamp right on his shoulder, too. Ouch.) Rating: Look, if one of these matches wants to last longer than a Ramones song, I’ll be happy to rate it. Sid, Chapter II: Woof is next. Backstage though, the Mamalukes are with Mean Gene. 2XS (and that makes me feel dirty just typing that) arrives and demands a title shot. Well, they’ve been back for like, fifteen minutes, in WCW time that makes them veterans, I guess. Rick Steiner is on his way to the ring, dressed like a biker who can’t remember where he left his pants. Scott Hudson makes sure we remember Sid’s GRUELING matchup from earlier. You know, the one that went two minutes and forty-eight seconds.  The intros for this match go longer. Sid gets tossed into the crowd within seconds of the get-go, taking half the audio cables with him. Rick tries to suplex him onto the announce table, and of course half-way up discovers Sid’s tangled in wiring. There’s a second where it looks like he’s just going to be dropped crotch-first on the guard rail, or worse.  That was terrifying. Luckily, Rick regains control and puts Sid through the table. The match is literally 60 seconds old. Tony’s now calling the action solo, as Mike and Scott’s have been taken off the air thanks to Rick’s rearrangement of the audio cables. Sid and Rick fight up the aisle and to the back. Scott and Mike get back on the air, assuring us this is a REAL Hardcore match, because they’re not using trashcans. Which is interesting, seeing as how their Hardcore Champion hit like, 12 trashcan shots over the last few weeks. They reach an inexplicable sheet of glass that’s still set up from whenever the last hockey game was played here and bounce each other off it. Hilariously a hand with a baseball bat suddenly pokes out from behind a curtain and KO’s both of them. Uhh, thank you, Thing.  Tonight, WCW Thunder and Puppet Show. Sid falls on top for the pinfall at 4:05 Rating:1.4 of a star. Longer than Blitzkrieg Bop, I guess. DDP vs. The Machine next! I remember this one being somewhat infamous for some reason. But first, Hulk Hogan… leaves the arena. Wait, what? He parked up for 30 minutes, left the car and then hosed off 15 minutes later? I wish MY days work was that easy. The Machine gets pyro and commentator hype for being a chonky boy, And yes, he’s a huge dude wearing a mask. Should have teamed him with The Wall and called him “Slab”. The Machine controls with power moves until DDP lariats his head off. Lowblow and Snake Eyes turn the tide, Machine gets two off a Side Russian Legsweep. And then it happens. The Machine goes to the top, DDP bounces off the FAR ropes, which through some sort of WCW physics makes the Machine scream like a banshee and leap onto the top rope like his balls called his mother a racial slur.  Wonderful. Top-rope lariat and Diamond Cutter make the Machine 0-1 in 3:58. Rating: ½ a set of crushed testicles. Well, I now remember why the gif of this match is still circulating around the Internet to this date. Mean Gene interviews Arn Anderson about Ric and Terry’s upcoming match. Arn makes sure to point out how long they’ve both been around and namecheck every 50+ year old wrestler. So I guess the match is going to be under “First Man to Break a Hip Loses” rules. Up next, Tank Abbott’s beer belly. And a few seconds later, the rest of him comes out as well. The jiggling is hypnotic. He’s up against… some guy in a mask who didn’t get an intro. He has a tag-team partner, so I assume they are the Palette-Swapped Conquistadors. Turns out it’s Villano IV, taking time out from his successful career in Mexico to job repeatedly in WCW. He does a bit of not-quite twin magic with the rather heftier Villano V, who gets KO’d by Tank instantly.  Hope they got to fly business class Stateside for this squash. Villano IV jumps back in, one punch KO and Tanks heads back to the locker room before Nick Patrick has finished the 10-count. Rating: It literally took me three times longer to type out the match recap than the match lasted. Let’s move on. Twenty-three minutes to go. “Twenty-three matches to go!”, quips my kid. He’s learning fast. The Harris Brothers have an interview, oops, my finger slipped on the fast-forward button. Send out the Mamelukes. Or the Pisanos. Or whatever they’re calling themselves in this segment. Crowd Sign: “Flair (David)”. Your fandom (sucks), but your sign was (hilarious). As usual, Crowbar starts things off against a Mameluke, but screw that, we need to focus on Daffney screaming at Miss Hancock until the latter wanders back to the locker room. Johnny the Bull press-slams Crowbar and spits on him. That would never fly in 2022. Crowbar tags in Flair (David) by slapping him on his (stupid, stupid) head. David (Flair) proceeds to have a one-man dance fight with Vito (Big), who kicks his rear end and dances like your drunk uncle at a Bar Mitzvah.  *disco music intensifying* Vito treats Davd (Flair)’s head like a cannoli, and heads to the middle rope. He misses the splash, but inadvertently kicks Davy (Crazy) in the head after he doesn’t roll far enough away. Crowbar gets the hot tag and cleans house as Daffney finds something HILARIOUS. Johnny practically decapitates David (I’ll end the joke here) Flair, poo poo breaks down, crowbar to the back of Vito’s skull, Crowbar wins in 3:48. Rating: Fuggedaboutit. Under ten minutes to go, so I guess it’s “Main Event” time! (The ring crew must be so glad that took hours to set up the cage every week for these marathon matches) And so we cut to a commercial. Sid is selling a leg injury, so that eats up plenty of time as he limps to ringside. The Harris’es jump him in the aisle. They fight around ringside (REAL glad they set up the cage), finally getting inside with about 6 minutes of airtime left.  When Charles Robinson is the most interesting participant in the match. The Harris Boys have all sorts of trouble getting over the ropes, AND leave the door open. You two born in a barn? Sid lies on the floor like a corpse as the Harris Brothers work him over, VERY slowly. He makes the Superman comeback, offering the Harries’es a pair of crushed nuts, Chokeslam and… it’s over, Sid wins in 3:55. So the “Main Event” ran only SEVEN SECONDS longer than Crowbar/Flair vs the Mamelukes? REALLY? Typical nWo beatdown begins, along with typical WCW production errors. (The cage starts to rise up, cut to backstage where Scott Hall is obviously waiting for his cue to push the “Raise the Cage Button''. Maybe he thought it would go up twice as fast if he kept pushing it?)  I like that they apparently gave Roddy Piper’s much-smaller cousin a job here. Both the Machine and The Demon are jealous of the button, as at least IT is getting a push. Jeff Jert kills YET another guitar on Sid’s head as some fan throws an apple at him. Go home, Carlito, you’re drunk. We’re out of time, and patience, we’ll see you next week on Thunder! God help us all.
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Jan 31, 2022 12:33
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i think vito is christopher daniels
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Jan 31, 2022 13:56
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Cavauro posted:i think vito is christopher daniels He looks like him, but he’s actually Vito LoGrasso. Reading up on him, he had a post-WCW run in WWE with a cross-dresser gimmick, winning matches due to his opponents getting distracted by the fact he wore a dress in the ring. Oh, my aching sides.
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Jan 31, 2022 21:05
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Distorted Kiwi posted:Jim Carey School of Subtle Acting 
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Jan 31, 2022 21:55
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DMorbid posted:I think this is supposed to be Jim Carrey, unless the former Washington Capitals goalie had a school of subtle acting named after him. Trust me, I expect my spelling to devolve as Thunder breaks me.
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Jan 31, 2022 22:43
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i think Vito LoGrasso is Bill Goldberg
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Feb 1, 2022 04:35
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Distorted Kiwi posted:He looks like him, but he’s actually Vito LoGrasso. Reading up on him, he had a post-WCW run in WWE with a cross-dresser gimmick, winning matches due to his opponents getting distracted by the fact he wore a dress in the ring. And remember the time Perry Saturn wore a dress & seemed to be in love with a mop? You can just hear Vince hooting & hollering watching it, muttering "such good poo poo" between chuckles.
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Feb 1, 2022 12:11
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forkboy84 posted:And remember the time Perry Saturn wore a dress & seemed to be in love with a mop? You can just hear Vince hooting & hollering watching it, muttering "such good poo poo" between chuckles.
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Feb 1, 2022 19:29
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DMorbid posted:I think this is supposed to be Jim Carrey, unless the former Washington Capitals goalie had a school of subtle acting named after him. The actor probably has a better glove hand. Boom! Suck it, hockey player from 25 years ago!
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Feb 1, 2022 23:44
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On next week's Thunder, The Demon continues to suck! The gentlest baseball bat shot of the year 2000! And Ric Flair vs. a magazine!
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Feb 1, 2022 23:53
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DMorbid posted:The dress was a WCW bit! He ended up wearing it during his feud with Raven in 1999. He just wore his regular gear during the Moppy angle in WWF a couple of years later. Huh. My brain is a mess.
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Feb 1, 2022 23:59
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Well, it's not like I'm proud of remembering all this stuff off the top of my head. I wish I could remember useful things 
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Feb 2, 2022 00:13
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forkboy84 posted:Huh. My brain is a mess. Try watching two episodes of Thunder a week, you’ll feel like someone took a hammer to your cerebral cortex.
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Feb 2, 2022 09:59
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Hi ho, hi ho, it’s back to Thunder we go. Can things get worse than the last few weeks? Magic 8-Ball says “Looks likely!”. Previously on Nitro, Jarrett books Sid and Scott Hall, David Flair has an “I Quit Match” with Terry Funk which does not go well for him, and Lex Luger puts Jimmy Hart in the Torture Rack to send a message to Hulk Hogan. The message may be, “Jimmy has a sore back”. Tensions flare between Jarrett and Hall, mainly due to Jeff breaking guitar #4,213 over Hall’s head. That’ll do it, all right.  “Go find me a 24-hour guitar shop, I’m running low!” We’re in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the place you put the pin if you want to spin the United States in a circle. Newswise, it’s the usual (I.C.U beds have run out due to Covid-19 running rampant), the predictable (Amazon delivery driver dumps 600 packages in a field) and the odd. (Home Alone actor facing attempted murder charges for strangling his girlfriend) Also, their basketball team is the Thunder, which is a nice coincidence. Two-man announce team tonight, with Mike Tenay and Bobby Heenan on the sticks. We’re starting off with the Cruiserweights, it seems, as we check out the tournament title brackets. 3-Count (with their cardboard circles) head on out to support Shannon.  I think they spent more time designing this logo than the cruiserweights spend in the ring. Fan Sign: “Goldberg Spheres Queers”. What the gently caress does that even mean, rear end in a top hat? Some brief dancing before Lash Leroux interrupts. Guess he’s the face now. Lash presents Bobby Heenan with Mardi Gras beads. Luckily for us, Bobby doesn’t have to flash him in return. Bobby nibbles them to see if they’re real. Nice touch.  “Did Harlem Heat have a yard sale?” Shannon and Shane get in a brawl with Lash on the floor, so Shannon hits a very nice-looking springboard Moonsault on him. Shannon goes all Lucha on Lash, who blocks a complicated rana attempt and wheelbarrows his face into the turnbuckle. Shannon no-sells, so Lash back suplexes him for 2.  SHENANIGANS! Distraction from Evan, Shane helps Shannon out, Lash cleans house of all three and wins with a rollup in 2:12. Rating: ¼ of a giant Bourbon Street Strawberry Daiquiri. If you’re going to have a tournament, perhaps give the participants more than 20 minutes of COMBINED ring time. 3-Count beat down Lash, Norman Smiley makes the save! You’re our hero, Norman! He’s facing 3-Count 1-on-3 at Superbrawl, which I probably WILL recap. If I have enough whisky in the house for a 3-hour show, that is.  “So, should we push this guy everyone is screaming for, or are we still idiots in WCW?” Norm has a microphone, calling the boys “no-talent, Milli Vanilla Spice Girls!”. Well, actually, he said “Mulili Vanuily”, but it was a tough name to pronounce, I guess. He also wants to “get jiggy in San Francisco”, which sounds like a comeone. Expect to see dozens of homophobic signs about that. This portion of Thunder brought to you by Western Union, and whatever ideas happen when Kevin Sullivan’s six remaining brain cells rub together. Back from the break, Mike introduces Bobby as his new Thunder co-presenter. The crack WCW crew accidentally cut to a shot of the empty ring half-way through his sentence, of course. Mike does make a slightly snide reference to the amount of people that show up at ringside during any given match, so they shouldn’t be lonely. Tonight, the NEW Hardore Champ Bam Bam Bigelow faces The Demon, who’s having quite the career plummet. Booker vs. Stevie Ray face off tonight, because gently caress blowing that feud off at Superbrawl. Instead, it’s Booker to face Big T on Pay-Per-View for the rights to the name “Harlem Heat”. The U.S legal system was weird in 2000. Lane and Idol wll meet The Mamalukes, plus Ric Flair will get to talk about Terry kicking the poo poo out of David. Back from another break, guess who is heading on out? Why yes, it IS the nWo, great guess there Nostradamus. Jarrett and the Harris Boys, at least. Slapnuts, Chosen One, all the Stroke, blah, blah, blah. Sid vs. The Harris Bozos in a tag match tonight. Sid’s partner is Terry Funk, who I hope keeps his pants on after the match this week.  This goes on for some time… Wolfpac theme plays, Scott Hall oozes his way to the stage. My memory of WCW is fuzzy, but I recall the Wolfpac was a thing several years earlier, when there were, like, eighteen different variations of this stable. Scott introduces the actual Commissioner via video link. Nash is unhappy with the in-fighting, stripping Jarrett of his booking powers by way of the most-used Spiderman quote. He also knows what comic it first appeared in. Well, that’s a commitment to being a nerd, Kev. I’m now confused as to whether this is a face turn, or just some really inconsistent characterisation. Or both.  “Cheer me! Or boo me, or whatever.” Kev wants to teach Jarret some humility, while simultaneously making inside jokes about Larry Zybsyko. He sets up Hall vs. Jarrett with the title shot on the line. Jarrett is unhappy with this, upgrading his insults to “slapass” in protest. Scott makes an oblique reference to “getting in trouble again” if he talks, so I’ll be looking up whatever that was, I guess. He offers up a survey, and the crowd has definitely turned him face again. We’re taking a break! I should point out that we are 1/3rd of the way through the show, with 132 seconds of actual in-ring action.  Better send out a high-flyer. Recap of Bam- Bam winning the Hardcore title after Special Guest Referee Finlay KO’s Knobbs and fast-counts a pinfall. Oh no, they looked like such good friends in the… what, 12 days they were a team? The Demon gets his expensive-looking “emerge-from-the-coffin” entrance. Bam Bam meets him as he steps out, kendo-sticks him in the face and wins the “match” in 0.07.  JUST managed to screencap it. Rating: What the absolute gently caress is going on here? Did every member of KISS piss in Ted Turners cornflakes? Why is he being jobbed out every week? How much did this cost the company on licensing fees alone? If you need me, I’ll be in my kids paddling pool with an alcoholic beverage for the next twenty minutes. Okay, I’m back. Let’s continue. Brain Knobbs makes a very unsuccessful post-match run-in, getting brutalised by Bam Bam for his trouble. Sid and Terry whisper and drawl their way through a backstage interview, and Big T is hungry, so Steveie Ray is on his own until he gets back with some ribs.  If he can find them from under that hoodie. Stevie and his lawyer head out to the ring. They’re not expecting Booker, who was arrested on Nitro. So he walks out to some jaunty, non-Harlem Heat music mere seconds later. The system works!  He must have been incarcerated in a tornado, judging by his shirt. Booker doesn’t want the match, choosing instead to assault Stevie’s lawyer instead. Not the best legal strategy, but it’s effective. This is over in sixty seconds, so he storms backstage. We’re still under three minutes of actual wrestling in this show. Scott and Nash chat on the phone like a bad 70’s sitcom, booking Luger vs. Finlay for tonight. Meanwhile, Crowbar and Daffney chuckle their way into the arena for a mixed tag match with Kidman and Torrie.  Worst PILLOW TALK remake ever, But first, commercials. Holy crap, by now I would have switched over to the CBS Wednesday Night Movie. More Mean Gene-led chit chat, this time with Ric Flair. Many, MANY whoo’s later we finally have a chance of an actual match. This one has been booked because Crowbar attacked Kidman to defend the honour of KISS, following yet another look-at-the-lights job by the Demon. Turns out this is a straight Kidman/Crowbar match, despite the awkward phrasing earlier that had me thinking it was tag bout. Crowbar bumps around for a bit, then drops Kidman chest-first on the guard rail. Daffney’s screaming is drowning out the fans and possibly busting the eardrums of the entire first row. Kidman dropkicks Crowbar out of the air, only to take a DDT like his spine has been welded into a straight line.  PHYSICS! We go spot/reversal/spot/reversal/spot/reversal until Torri distracts the referee for no reason, the boys fight over a lead pipe, Kidman wins the tussle and hits him with it. (Easiest game of Clue to date!) Top-Rope Hurricanrana, Kidman gets the 3-count in 3:49, DOUBLING the amount of wrestling on tonight’s show so far. Rating: Just a bunch of stuff. I’m sure next week they’ll be feuding with other people over another trivial matter. Sid’s on his way to the ring for the tag-match and is still crazy over. (Or else there’s some SERIOUS vocal sweetening going on.) Terry “My knees are made of girders” Funk joins him, taking so long to arrive we get another VERY lengthy recap of Terry murderizing David Flair.  Oddly, I’m cool with watching this. Jarrett joins the announce crew, so I’ll get to hear eighty variations of “Slapnuts” shortly. The Harris's try to jump-start the match with some vicious.. Well, back-scratches. Sid pummels a random Harris and hits him with a chair on the floor. It’s not the legal twin, so no DQ. I think that’s in the rulebook somewhere. Terry controls for 30 seconds, then plays Well-Aged Ricky Morton as the Harris Boys use some uninteresting offence. Pier-sixer, chokeslam by Sid, Funk hits a Texas Piledriver on Harris #1 onto exposed concrete. Charles Robinson is all like, “I’m not getting paid enough to sort this out” and just lets everything go.  “Just leave me out of this, guys!” Funk gets the table set up while Harris #2 punches Sid in the balls. Jarrett hops in, guitar shots Funk while Li’l Naitch was apparently off having a coffee. Funk goes through the table and gets pinned at 5:23. Was the Harris boy legal? Was FUNK legal? Do I care enough to check? Rating: No, no I do not. Backstage, Flair shouts at Luger through a door, even though it’s pretty obvious Lex isn’t actually appearing in this scene. It’s like a Godfrey Ho ninja movie in wrestling form. Superbrawl promo, with Hogan vs Luger as a “Special Attraction Event”. Luger comes out to yak for a while. He’s all over the place, being as grammatically accurate as Rick Steiner and slurring his words. Lay off the protein shakes, Lex. Finally we end this painful segment as Finally arrives for his match with Luger. And in the time it took to type that last sentence, the match is over by a DQ, after Liz gently taps Finlays ankle with a baseball bat. Time of the contest, a marathon 58 seconds.  “Boop!” Lex tries to break Finlays arm with a chair afterwards. Knobbs (with an arm broken by Lex Luger on Nitro) shows up to add some injury to injury on Fit’s arm. Guess we’ll have a match between two guys in arm casts pretty soon. Lane and Idol talk with Gene. They don’t have “a team miz-ame”, says Lenny. Hey dumbass, you came up with “2XS” a week ago. Lay off the weed, your short-term memory is HORRIBLE. Also, please never use the word “miz-ame” again. Somehow they have a title shot tonight, though. Or possibly a “shiz-ot”.  “Can we get an consist-iz gimm-iz, please… iz?” Fan Sign: “Disco makes me Marma-Puke”. Nice one. Lane and Idol jump-start the match during the Mamalukes introduction, so I guess we’re running short on time tonight. They double-team Vito, with Lane hitting a corner splash so high he overshoots the top of the ringpost and nearly kills the cameraman. (Yet somehow lands on his feet on the floor) Well, that was terrifying and awesome at the same time. Vito still hasn't had time to take his belt off. Miss Hancock arrives to distract everybody, delivering notes to Tony and Bobby as the match starts to fall apart. Bobby and Tony seem to have no idea what’s on their notes, so I assume she just handed them a blank sheet as a prop.  The face of two guys who have NO idea what this is all about. The usual shenanigans see Idol run into Disco, get DDT’ed by Vto and the most pointless of title defences is over at 2:22. Rating: Same poo poo, different team Crowbar goes full face by running in to hit Disco with a pipe and steal the tag belts. The obligatory interview with The Cat eats up more time, although this gets a bonus point as he makes Mean Gene break character. (“I’m glad you don’t sell used cars!”. “I tell you what, I can sell my foot to your rear end!” *Mean Gene corpses, quick cut away*)  Highlight of the show. Mean Gene regains his composure enough to do an in-ring interview with Ric Flair. Fan Sign: “Space Mountain just turned into It’s a Small World”. Wonder which ex-wife that was. Ric’s apoplectic that the WCW Magazine put him behind Hulk Hogan in a “Top 100” poll. The magazine gets an elbow-drop and a stop to the kisser. Do i have to rate this match, it’s longer than the Hardcore title fight.  A picture speaks a thousand Whoos. Against all odds, there’s a mid-interview run-in by… Dustin Rhodes. Wow, actually forgot he was in WCW at this time. He’s in post-Seven mode, which means he’s VERY Texan and has a soul patch that's a different colour from his hair. It’s like he’s cosplaying as the Undertaker, based only on a brief description of him. Punches are thrown and the bell rings, so I guess this is an impromptu match. Charles “I Have No Spacial Awareness” Robinson gets involved in the world's fastest ref bump, a mere 13 seconds into the match, Bulldog by Dustin, he counts his own pinfall at 0:38.  Tag the magazine in, Ric! Rating: Zero anythings. Not going to give any or Ric’s hour-long Broadways a run for their money. Wait, it’s not over! They fight over a figure four as Charles revives, Flair hits Dustin with his Rolex and wins the match at a much more lengthy… uh, 1:25. My rating stands. Ric punches out Li’l Naitch, Terry runs in, Lex runs-in, my Uber Eats arrives and I lose interest. Mmm, chicken. The main eventers head out as Nash orders sushi. Should have got chicken, Kev. For all the poo poo I level at Jarrett, this starts off as the best match of the night so far. So of course, the Harris Idiots interfere about 90 seconds in as the ref goes blind. Jeff slaps on a sleeper, Scott sells like he’s watching a very boring movie, The two of them are having a perfectly adequate TV match, if kind of stuck in fast-forward due to the piddling amount of TV time left. Then Referee Mickey Jay gets a feather-light touch on the head and sells it like all of his bones evaporated.  Boop #2 Outsider’s Edge, they’re no-one to count. Jeff hits The Stroke, Mark Johnson, the Easily-Bribable Ref slides in and makes the count at 4:19. Rating: I deleted every star due to that horrible loving ending. Post-match, Mickey Jay wakes up and reverses the decision, Jeff hits Scott with the microphone, having apparently run out of guitars. It gets 2. Jeff goes for the belt, Scott steals and waffles him, The refs fight amongst themselves as Sid goes “gently caress it, I’ll run-in too! This isn’t overbooked at all!”. Chaos ensues, as usual. And we go off the air with no conclusive winner. Guess I’ll find out on Nitro. Oh, wait…
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Feb 8, 2022 04:12
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On our next exciting.. wait, the opposite of that... episode of THUNDER, Daffney throws things at people! Terry Funk tries to accidentally murder Dustin Rhodes! And the crowd goes comatose! After that, expect a slight gap in proceedings, as we go for a Pay-Per-View length recap of SUPERBRAWL 2000. Can't wait for three hours of idiocy on a bun.
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Feb 10, 2022 21:57
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THUN-DER! (insert Australian guitar riff here) It’s the Superbrawl go-home show! If we’re lucky, the fans won’t get up and go home before whatever abbreviated fiasco of a Main Event is booked for tonight. Recaps to start as usual. Kev’s back, with two probably-unqualified nurses in porn-starlet outfits by his side. Better talk fast, you’re racking up a HUGE medical bill. At SUPERBRAWL, it’s now a three-way dance! Better than watching them wrestle, I guess. Ric Flair is still over-excited, Jeff’s got a U.S title defence against Mr Jarrett, guess what, guitar shot to end it. SURPRISE!  Someone’s gonna WHOO the day… New thrash-metal opening credits that keep showing Goldberg making noises like an enraged woodchuck, edited into seizure-inducing oblivion. We’re coming to you from Philadelphia, PA! I know where that is, but I really can’t spell it. To the news! The Former President held a bitch-and-moan session, you can now get free legal representation when your slumlord evicts you, and ENDLESS stories about the 76’ers, who I believe are some sort of sports team. Go, Local Sports Team, go! Terry Taylor heads out right off the bat for a HUGE announcement. I suspect it isn’t “We ran out of guitars, so Jeff’s playing the ukulele tonight”, but there’s always hope. In a rambling diatribe, it turns out it’s just “Hey, Sid’s not here tonight so we don’t gently caress up Superbrawls main event.” As is becoming a tradition, the nWo theme plays Jarret and the Harris’es out to ringside. Same promo as always, with the addition of a beatdown of Mr. Rooster. Yes, there WAS a guitar and some spray paint involved, great guess.  A Rooster and three turkeys. We’ve still got Mike and Bobby at the desk, which would be great if Bobby didn’t seem to have been sedated since he got back to WCW. TONIGHT! Smiley vs. The Wall, Knobbs and Finlay get to wrestle with matching broken arms. Apparently Hulk Hogan got his arm broken at Nitro by Luger, too. Someone please call OSHA, this place is unsafe. It’s time for the final Cruiserweight Tournament semi-final match, with TAFKA Prince Iukea vs Psicosis. Who has apparently turned Japanese. What the hell?  “Ole, TAFKAPI-san.” Okay, so Psicosis has been prevented from coming to the U.S.A due to “circumstances”. As it’s February, that’s either a snowstorm or Psicosis was caught carrying ALL of Juvy’s stash. Some cursory research simply says he was released about this time, spent a few weeks in ECW and then went back to Mexico for the rest of the year. Good call, amigo. So Kaz Hayashi has been drafted back in, following his first-round loss to Psicosis. He doesn’t even get an entrance, so I'm guessing we won’t see him at Superbrawl. Crowd Sign: “Bring Back the ICP”. Sure, there’s probably a few things left they can fall off in a ridiculous fashion. Miss Hancock shows up, so we focus almost exclusively on her instead of the match. Finally Charles Robinson sends her to the back, turning into a massive heel in Philly in the process. Kaz wipes out TAFKAPI with a tope suicida, which TAFKAPI pretty much ignores. Dragon Screw Legwhip and leaping DDT sends TAFKAPI to the finals in 3:07. Rating: I rate that as much as the audience seemed to care, so… zero.  Even Muff Daddy there. Up next, Norm vs The Wall, so let’s go so let’s see what Kevin is doing. Nothing. Good. Screamin’ Norm sucks up to the crowd with his Eric Lindross Flyers jersey. Much wigglin’ later, a nightclub bouncer arrives. Oh wait, it’s the Wall. He’s facing the Demon at Superbrawl, for… uh, reasons? Just to hype up his chances, let’s recap him losing to Bam Bam Bigelow on Nitro. Norman throws some ineffectual clotheslines , so The Wall boots his teeth in and sends him to the floor. Somehow, Norman gets the best of the brawl, until the wall returns to the ring and attempts to murder him with boots and backbreakers. Norman uses a devastating flurry of butt-wiggles and a wind-up scoop slam, and the fans are LOVING it. Put him in against Jarret, STAT!  *Babyface pop* Naturally, this means The Wall gets to instantly recover and chokeslam the babyface for the win at 3.06. Way to read the room, guys. Rating: ½ of whichever of Eric Lindross’s stats would be relevant here. I don’t watch hockey. The Wall goes to get a table from under the ring for some post-match fun. In true WCW fashion, there isn’t one under the side he looks in, leaving him standing in confusion until referee Nick Patrick gently redirects him. Norm takes a HUGE bump through the table, which pretty much atomises. At least the table knows how to sell for him. He does a stretcher job, and this better not take him off Superbrawl, as it was the only match I was interested in so far.  *Daffney-like scream* Kevin tries to get the arena staff to take him to the ring, but it’s not wheelchair accessible. There’s a lawsuit in the future. Norman is loaded in an ambulance after the commercial break, with Mike using his “This is serious'' voice. Then he immediately has to plug Tank Abbot’s upcoming “Leather Jacket on a Pole'' match against “Big Al” at Superbawl. That’s a tonal shift for ya. Heading to the ring now… uh, some blond guy I’ve forgotten. Bobby is talking over Penzer, so I have to wait for his nameplate. Oh, it’s Van Hammer. Didn’t recognise him without a guitar. He’s up against Tank, so this may be a bad way to make your return to a company.  Diamond Dallas Riddle Tank judo-flips Hammer out of the corner to start, but Hammer’s not taking that poo poo and just DRILLS Tank with an Alabama Slam, I think this pisses off Tank, who knocks him cold with the FIST OF FURY punch to end it at 0:45. Rating: Guys, he’s not Goldberg. Please stop booking him to be Goldberg. Backstage, Vampiro and Kidman argue. CAN THEY CO-EXIST? Do we care? Off-Key Vangelis heralds the arrival of Lex Luger, who’s going for extra heel heat by wearing some other team’s hockey jersey. I mean, it’s probably a hockey team, or he just likes buffaloes. Crowd Sign: “DDP, The Hippies Champ”. Like, fer sure, man. Lex is out to announce his partnership with Ric Flair, and once again he’s verbally stumbling all over the place. Really feels like his drug and alcohol problems must have been ramping up around this time. Speaking of someone who sounds high as a kite, here’s Ric Flair to shout ALL the words at us. He takes a shot at Eric Lindross, which doesn’t actually get that big of a heel reaction. Flair gets stuck in a loop, repeating himself several times until the crack production crew FINALLY hit Terry Funk’s music.  “Any time would be nice, assholes…” Terry stumbles out with Dustin Rhodes, and we get some dueling Old Man Screaming. I smell a tag team match on the way. Terry wants a match in which he’ll “Pluck your asses”, which is a new stipulation for me. Ric gets over-excited about the idea of Lex taking his shirt and oiling himself up. MUCH overlapping shouting later, the match is booked. Huzzah. Up next, Vampiro and Kidman vs.. oh, joy, The Harris Brothers. Commercial time, then an interview with The Mamelukes about their upcoming “Sicilian Stretcher Match” at Superbrawl. This is going to be three hour of stupid gimmick matches I’m going to have to watch, isn’t it? But first up, It’s a Philly Street Fight with Vito and Crowbar. For some reason, Johnny the Bull is eating a sandwich during Vito’s interview. Didn’t look like a Cheesesteak, so serious points off for that one.  Or if it is, it’s the saddest one ever made. Harris's head to ringside as the boys discuss a brawl between two referees at Nitro. Oh good, can we put a striped shirt on a pole and let them fight over it? Kidman enters, and for some reason there’s a random kid in tie-dye standing at ringside with a Nitro crew member. I hope Kidman tags him in if he gets in trouble. Vampiro opens up the bout with some kicks that look like he really didn’t give a gently caress if they connected. He tags in Kidman, who goes straight to the top rope and launches a cross-body that lightly grazes Harris #1. REAL close to just missing everybody there, Billy. Forearms and punches as the Harris brothers dominate Vamp, before they go to the chinlock, We’re only a few minutes in, and their offense is already sending me into a boredom coma. Vamp hits a spinning heel kick and sells like he’s run the Boston Marathon, crawling for a tag. We’re exactly three minutes into the bout. “Hot” tag, Kidman cleans house as someone holds up our requisite “My friend is gay” sign. Add Brendon to the list of guys outed on this show.  Props to the guy who remembered The Gambler, though. Vampiro wanders off briefly, then returns in time to take a steel chair to the head. (Due to Tori stupidly distracting the referee long enough for her team’s opponents to cheat wildly) The incompetent referee counts the pinfall on the not-at-all legal man, Harris Brothers win 4:16. Rating: Wake me up when the Harris Push ends. Street Fight is next! Only excited as Daffney is here, with pink hair this week. She’s having screaming practice on the way to the ring. Vito ambushes Crowbar backstage as the ‘Lukes barricade a door to stop Dave and Daff helping out. Vito and Crowbar play WCW Backstage Assault: The Home Game for a while, damaging all of the arena's pristine trashcans and oddly-discarded cookie sheets. Daffney’s screaming is audible, but that only means she’s only within a half-mile radius of the fight, to be honest. Crowbar and Vito fight on a forklift, ending upon a car's roof.  Someone call Geico. Vito gets suplexed on another car's hood. Who is parking INSIDE the arena? Someone keeps throwing lettuce and tomatoes at the pair, which is finally revealed to be Daffney. (In an awkward moment where they cut to her waiting to throw something) Crowbar falls off a packing crate onto a car roof, Vito elbow drops him and this pointless match is in the books at 3:28. Rating. ⅛ of a half-decent cheesesteak. Next up… oh my God, a referee vs. referee match. I bloody called it, didn’t I? Guess the world was crying out for Mark Johnson vs Mickey Jay. But first, Nash eats oranges and sexually harrases his nurses like he’s five years old. Then has to pretend his wheelchair isn’t working, because there’s no room for him to move without driving it into either his desk or the cameraman. These backstage segments are some true moments of the worst anti-comedy, and I’ve watched ROLLERGATOR, so I know what I’m talking about. Coming up at Superbrawl, Hulk Hogan (with broken arm) vs. Lex Luger (with Miss Elizabeth) in a “Featured Attraction Match”. Should have been a “Fatal Attraction” match, where the winner gets to have sex with Liz in an elevator. Mark Johnson comes out with the Harris’s to the nWO theme, so he’s now “nWo Ref” for ease of typing. Mckie Jay gets to be “WCW Ref”. The crowd is SLIGHTLY apathetic about this one.  R.I.P, Mr Jay. Crowd Sign: “Tea Bag”. I rather not see that, no matter who wins. nWo Ref controls first with heel tactics as the fans sit on their hands. Much kicking and a word bit where he just kind of tugs on WCW Ref’s leg. Twice. He whiffs on an elbow drop, WCW Ref uses his awesome offense of “Nothing but punches”, Harris Boys distract the actual ref, boots Mickey in the head, nWo Ref wins in 2:14. Crowd seems unimpressed and confused. Rating: Please never put these two in the ring again, WCW. Cast Match time! Knobbs vs. Finlay, with Jimmy “I Also Have a Broken Arm” Hart as special guest referee. They fight out into the crowd and back for about 45 seconds and take turns slamming each other's injured arms into the steps. There’s two guys in the second row who’ve bought like, 12 pro-Juggalo signs each, and the fact I noted that shows how enthralling this is. Knobbs wins with a cast-encrusted arm the the back of Finlay’s head in 2:15. Rating: Can we go home now? Superbrawl 2000 promo package follows the break. It lasts longer than the last two matches combined. ORDER NOW! Recap of Luger breaking Hogan’s arm from Nitro. The crowd is either starting to chant “Ho-gan” or “Bor-ing”. Possibly both. We get a pre-taped Hogan promo, and it’s coming up on ten minutes since the live audience had anything happen in the arena. Hogan’s promo alone goes over two minutes. We throw to a commercial break afterwards, which I'm sure helped to piss off a few fans.  “Brotherbrotherbrotherbrother….” On the upside, it’s time for the Main Event! Luger/Flair vs Funk/Rhodes. Lex and Ric get separate entrances as the TV time drains away like my will to live. Get a huge sheet, because the crowd is DEAD, baby. Even the entrance of the faces only wakes up the youngest kids in the crowd. Ric and Funk brawl arthritically to the floor, leading to a rather early Pier Sixer. Dustin clotheslines Lex and makes a rather overly-enthusiastic crotch-focused taunt at him. Either that, or he was just REALLY itchy down there for a second. Funk and Flair end up on top of the announce table within a minute of the get-go, but it’s a tease. Back to the ring, Ric goes to the top rope, and you can probably guess how well THAT goes for him. Rhodes and Luger keep running in to interfere, meaning the match has all the flow of maple syrup in an Alaskan winter. Lex runs into Funk’s boot on a blind charge.. Oh, wait, let me rephrase. Lex runs within a foot of Funk’s outstretched leg, misses it entirely and just kind of falls over backwards. The crowd wakes up long enough to poo poo on that spot. “Hot” tag to Dustin, house-cleaning commences, Liz boops Dustin’s ankle with the baseball bat, Lex KO’s him with said ball bat, Flair puts on the figure-four and it’s over in 5:43.  Look how excited everyone is. Rating: I’m starting to agree with the second-row guys, bring back the ICP. Terry protests by throwing Mike Tenay’s chair into the ring, which lands on Dustin’s face. Mad respect for playing-unconscious Dustin, as he somehow no-sells a piece of office furniture. Backstage, we close out the show with Nash banning the Harris’s from Superbrawl and getting the obligatory guitar shot from Jarrett. We’re outta time, etc. See you at Superbrawl! God help us all.
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Feb 18, 2022 11:38
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Okay, I didn't die of the 'Rona or something. Just a combination of too much work and pulling multiple muscles in my back and shoulder has slowed down my reviewing. Weirdly, I did a shoulder muscle last time I was recapping wrestling for this hellsite, so I guess my body just tries to stop me listening to Mark madden by any means possible.
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Mar 3, 2022 22:21
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Starting to wonder what would kill you first - 2000 Thunder or the 'Rona.
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Mar 3, 2022 22:34
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 Gonna go watch a ladder match.
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Mar 14, 2022 12:25
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And after a brief ten months break to clear my head, I'm back. Where was I? Oh that's right... Pay-Per-View. SUPERBRAWL 2000 is on the air! (Twenty-three years ago, that is.) ARE YOU READY TO RECAP? Not really. Just let me pour a fortifying shot of Wild Turkey Longbranch, and let’s get this three-hour shitshow on the road. (Three hours, so that’s like, 43 matches, right?)  “Dude, your federation sucks. Eat a Snickers.” Snickers presents… a montage cut into 0.0003 second long shots. I thought I had the Network in fast-forward. (Not a bad idea, to be honest.) Tonight, Terry Funk vs. Flair in a death match… as they’re both over fifty, death is a distinct possibility. Hulk Hogan vs Luger, Sid vs Jarret vs. Hall! Multiple guitar shots in the recap, making me regret trying to count the number of Acoustic Equalizers (and uses of “slapnuts: and it’s millions of variations) in the show tonight. We are LIVE (plus or minus 22 years) from the Cow Palace, San Francisco! In the local news, ransomware attack on the 49ers, two more Walgreens are set to close, and it’s spookiest tourist attraction is closing for good. (That was the San Francisco Haunted Haunted House, I believe, where even the ghosts are haunted by bigger, SCARIER ghosts) More pyro than a bad day at the unlicensed fireworks factory. Crowd Sign: “DICK”. I take it that’s a request, sir? We’ll see what we can do. Immediate cut to Mean “byGAWD” Gene in the backstage area, who’s hoping to talk to Kevin Nash. He meets a selection of underdressed ladies and Jeff Jarret, who raises the Slapnuts count faster than I can write. Jeff overrides Nash’s ban on the Harris Boys being at ringside. Our announce team is Tony Schi-hard-name-to-spell, Mike Tenay and goddammit, it’s Mark Madden.  Pictured: Sid’s passport photo. Crowd Sign: “Dez Nuts 4:20”. You’re both unfunny and illiterate, moron. More hype, including some VERY year 2000 Powerpoint-like graphics for the matches we’ve already been told about in the pre-show. Mike Tenay wants to know if it’s going to be ‘Hulk” Hogan, “Hollywood” Hogan or a “deadly combination of the two!”. So, Hulkywood Hogan, then? They’ve been talking longer than every one of the last three Cruiserweight matches on Thunder. Anytime you want to send out a wrestler would be great, fellas? Also tonight, Kidman vs Vampiro (again) and the “Special main Event Match” so that The Demons contract with WCW (which held a clause that he got a main event on PPV) is legally fulfilled, in the lamest way possible.  Bathroom break spot confirmed. That was a lot of talking, better give the crowd what they want. A video of Oklahoma’s horrible desecration of the Cruiserweight title. We’re nearly TEN minutes in and the crowd is already starting to entertain themselves while waiting for ANYTHING to happen. Full recap of the Cruiserweight matches to date. This final match better be loving AMAZING. Finally, we’ve got our Curtain Jerkers! Lash Leroux vs. TAFKAPI. Guess all that preamble was allowing them to set up Iukea’s candles for his introduction. Paisley gets on the microphone to hype the Artist, Lash sexually harrases her booty on the way past. Classy, Lashster. She returns the favour by gently scratching his ribs with her foot. Oh wait, that was supposed to be a vicious kick. Gotcha. TAFKAPI mounts the buckles for some punches, Lash shoves him off, which The Artist sells like he’s been trained by Shawn Michaels. Twice. Then a third time, this time sending him all the way across the ring. Did they switch the cheat mode to “Low Gravity”?  Apollo 13: The Match. Crowd Sign: “I Want my Release”. When even the paying fans want out, the end is near. Another Crowd Sign: “Where’s Benoit?”. I am NOT answering that. TAFKAPI is still super-selling, flinging himself out of the ring so that Lash can leap on him.He takes over with an UGLY Dragon Screw Legwhip that looked like Lashes leg was going to snap like a cheese straw. He hangs Lash in the Tree of Woe and runs into him butt-first. Naiomi is taking notes somewhere. There’s like, three signs with “slapnuts” on them, so they’re added.. *clicks pen*... TO THE LIST! Paisley is spending the entire match on the ring apron, like a terrible tag-team partner. Good officiating, Charles. She grabs TAFKAPI’s hand to prevent a lash-a-canrana, who hits the middle-rope jumping DDT for the title in 5:48. Rating: ½ of a broken Mardi Gras necklace. At least that got TWICE as long as usual. And an extra ¼ star for not involving Oklahoma in any way, shape or form.  *targeting…* Backstage, Norman Smiley gets taped up. Tony’s microphone is fading out as he talks, which is quite nice. HARD cut to Brian Knobbs, which is enough to scare any children watching. He shrieks some typical nonsense, practically drowning the cameraman in dribble. Generic rock music heralds Bam Bam Bigelows entrance for the Hardcore Title match. He’s got the Big Bin ‘o Plunder ready for Knobbs. Brian’s music sounds like a rip-off of “My Sharona”. Très Hardcore, Mr Knobbs. Our first sighting of referee Mickey Jay for the evening, who passed away from Covid the day I started this review. We salute you sir, and may flights of angels be delivering accidental chairshots to your skull in Referee Heaven. Fit Finlay’s come out to spectate, allowing Knobbs to get in the first trashcan shot. They brawl over to the WCW.com table and into the crowd. Well, crowd-adjacent, really, brawling up a ramp and into the backstage area. Knobbs goes through a conveniently-placed Hallway Table. The backstage area has a ton of trash in it… were they actual cows in this palace?  Mr Ferrara, the fans have a message for you. They quickly head back to the ringside, where Bam Bam gets tossed over the railing. He lands back-first on a chair, possibly by mistake. Ouch. Table #2 comes out, Knobbs sets it up in the corner. The Dramatic Hand of Irony strikes, he goes through it like a pudgy missile. Someone in the back suddenly turns Madden’s microphone up, so thanks for that, you jerk. Greetings From Asbury Park, Bam Bam doesn't cover, going up to the top rope instead. Knobbs knocks him onto the ropes googlies-first. Sadly, there’s no hilarious Machine-like scream-and-leap. Knobbs tosses Bam bBam and wins the title with a single trashcan lid to the back of the head at 4: 47. The word “anticlimactic” has a new picture to put in the dictionary next to it.  It looks like this. Rating: Gaaaaar-bage Day?! The commentators play it off as Knobbs using the cast on Bam Bam, reminding me that at NO time did Brian think to sell the broken arm as being even slightly painful. Glad the three weeks of setup paid off. BackWHOOstage, Ric FlWHOOair talksWHOO. 3-Count are on their way to the ring, so let’s cut to an in-no-way-ready cameraman giving us motion sickness. Smooth. He eventually gets focused on Evan’s abs as the boys head out. For a change there’s to be no singing or dancing, resulting in the first genuine pop of the night. Norman arrives in a 49ers jersey.  80 is how many pounds he weighs. Norman wiggles his way to the ring, having miraculously recovered from the “possible broken ribs’ he was having taped up backstage. He clears two of the boys out of the ring and backdrops Shannon over the ropes on them. Did his contract stipulate at least one move rated “Bloody Stupid” per match? Triple-team gets a series of one-counts on Norman, Helms gutwrench suplexes him and goes up. He launches a beautiful-looking reverse Senton Bomb and splats into the ol’ empty pool. Norman responds with a Giant Swing, Even makes the save and a dance party breaks out  New album cover has dropped. Norman’s still holding his own against all of 3-Count until they just gang up on him and kick the crap out of his ribs. Back-to-back top rope moves by Shane and Evan basically murder Norm, and a Boston Crab by Shannon seals the deal at a paltry 4:07. Rating: ¼ of a roll of athletic tape. Motherfuckers, it’s not Thunder. If these sub-five minute matches mean I have to watch Hogan go twenty, I’m going to be pissed off. The audio is breaking up badly for some reason, making Tony and co. sound like they’re down a well. It’s still broken as we introduce The Demon for his “Main Event” match. Having inaudible KISS music for this guy really seems like par for the course. I should also point out that his “Main Event” is at the 38-minute mark of a three hour show.  Your next heavyweight champion, folks. He’s drooling blood, which the announce team happily breaks kayfabe on. (With Tony going so far as to give the recipe for Gene Simmions fake blood). The Demon can NOT cut a break, can he? His opponent, The (Man with all the personality of a) Wall. His music plays, but there’s no sign of him. So The Demon goes Wall-Hunting. Even Madden knows this a stupid idea. The fans are now getting to watch the show they paid for on the big screen for the second time tonight, not counting the endless recaps, backstage skits and video packages. The Wall backjumps the Demon in the entranceway, his music fades out and there is an EERIE silence from the crowd. Guess this SOLD-OUT crowd was in awe, or something. Oh, and I checked the Wikipedia page for Superbrawl 2000, the “sold-out crowd” was 8,569. In a 14, 000 seat arena. Crowd Sign: “Hall+Nash=PPV Buy Rates”. Oh, you drat RIGHT I’m testing that theory. Let’s see, Souled Out 2000 (Nash only) did 95,000 buys. And this one, with Hall AND Nash did… 55,000. Ouch. Souled Out also sold 6,000 more tickets. In Ohio. Double Ouch. They get to the ring, where The Demon totally sandbags a Gorilla Press. They go back and forth a bit as Mark Madden gets way too into talking about the Demon’s Love Gun. Every time they hit a move there’s a split-second where they come within inches of loving it up. The fans are starting a “Boring!” chant, so The Wall… puts on a rest hold. Good plan, dude. He goes up to the top so The Demon can biel him off, Ric Flair-style. The Wall is a LOT bigger than Flair, so this is HORRIFIC, just drilling the dudes head into the mat like a railroad spike. He manages to recover enough to immediately go home, chokeslamming The Demon off the top rope at 3:52.  “gently caress.” Rating: ¼ of a Concussed Wall. Backstage, Mean Gene and The Cat waste some PPV time. The Cat is dressed like Fred Funkstone. Also, the Harris Brothers are uninteresting, and Tank Abbott gets a monotonic video package. Get the Pole, it’s “Skins Match”! Tank’s jacket is the prize, and the boys are talking it up like it’s Flair vs. Steamboat IV. Cue the generic rock music, let’s get this fiasco on the road. “You wanna fuckin’ GO?” Tank yells as he gets in the ring. Yeah, he’s gonna have a talk with Standards and Practices later, methinks. Big Al takes off his belt to tie their wrists together, then proceeds to immediately drop it when Tank grabs his hand. Well, this is off to a great start. They exchange left hands while shouting “Bring it! Bring that poo poo!” at each other like they’re in a direct-to-video movie with Michael Dudikof. Finally Big Al forearms Al “Toughest man in the Universe” Abbot one time, who sells it like he was sniped from the rafters. Al drags him into the corner and steps on Tanks face for a while. Tank revives and goes all Fists of Fury on Al. “This is BRUTAL” yells Mark, and yes, it’s brutal to watch, all right. In a moment of rare insanity, even for Tank, he puts Al on his shoulders and climbs up to the top rope with him. Whereupon he loses his grip and drops the poor guy out onto the floor in a hideously uncontrolled fall.  “HAPPY TRAILS, rear end in a top hat!” Tank improvises by… jumping out of the ring and hitting one soft punch to Al’s belly. Even Schiavonne finds that funny. Tank retrieves the jacket for the win at 4:36 Rating: Well, they both somehow survived that debacle, so we’ll be generous and say zero stars, shall we? And then it happens. Tank fumbles around for a while, trying to put his jacket on while standing on the top rope. Eventually even he realises this is a bad idea, so he tosses the jacket and pulls out a knife. Yes, an actual knife. He proceeds to put it to Al’s throat, screaming that he could “loving kill you!”. We QUICKLY cut to a wide shot as Tony tries to claim it’s a pair of scissors to cut off Al’s beard. Al is clean-shaven, but points for trying, dude.  Tank Abbot, misunderstood genius. Video package is up next to bring us up to speed on Booker T vs. Big T, Intellectual Property on a pole Match. Okay, so the name "Harlem Heat" isn't actually on a pole, but you can bet they thought about it. Winner of this gets the team name, the theme music, and hopefully the legal power to stop Mark Madden screaming "SPINAROONI" every twelve seconds. Mean Gene T interviews Booker Not-Legally-T, on my TV. I dig that, etc. Big T gets Booker's theme, and Stevie's hand-me-down pants for some reason. Booker still has “failed sitcom music” to come out to. Maybe He's Bookage Cleaveage? Crowd Sign: "WCW Sucks". Spot the guy with the comped ticket. Ahmed Big Johnson controls early with punches and clotheslines, managing not to maim Booker. Miracles do happen. Booker takes over within a minute and tosses Big T to the floor. He bops Stevie and T's heads together and goes "arrrgh" a few times. Well said, Book. Stevie and Big T's lawyer interfere, inches away from the referee, who goes conveniently blind and deaf for a while. Booker Book's up, hits the Sidekick, then the world's LOWEST Book End. It looked like Big T jumped DOWNWARD! Missile dropkick, Booker covers... and the lights go out. Is it over? Can I stop watching now? Nope, there's a random big dude on the ring apron when the lights go back on. His presence is enough for Big T to lightly tap Booker on the head, then powerbombs him for the win in 5:21. Rating: T-minus. The crowd is totally apathetic, as Harlem Heat's lawyer introduces the new guys by... never telling us his name.  He's called "Binky" until I know otherwise. Backstage, the Maestro tries to look arrogant, but he sounds like he's learning the language phonetically. He challenges The Cat to bring out James Brown tonight, which sounds like the colossal waste of money WCW 2000 would do. Also, The Harris Brothers shout at some guy. Twelve seconds well spent. Kidman vs. Vampiro recap. The program has been going for like, three weeks, which is long-term story-telling in WCW terms. They're wrestling each other to split the 1-1 tie tonight. Crowd Sign: "Who's Next? To Leave.". This company is getting roasted by its own paying customers. Bell rings, and that rarest of things, an actual wrestling match, breaks out. It's similar to the last few I've watched, only a little less frantically-paced. They do however keep loving up things like Irish whips, running into each other on more than one occasion. Torrie Wilson gets up on the apron, then gets knocked down. Will she get up again? Only Chumbawamba knows for sure. Shenanigans involving a chair on the floor, Vampiro takes a shot to the head so light Mick Foley probably sent him a strongly-worded letter. Back in the ring, they keep blowing every second spot as the crowd starts collectively doing their taxes, based on their near-silence. Lots of 2-counts, and no-one in the arena seems to care. Vampiro finally pops the crowd by powerbombing Kidman across two time-zones. It gets 2.  He landed in Utah. They go up, Kidman hits a Top-Rope-What-The-gently caress-Was-That for the three-count at 7:23. Seriously, that was an UGLY move, and I have ZERO idea what the hell it was supposed to be. Even the commentary team are pretty sure he just about murdered Vamp. Rating: Ouch. Backstage, Terry Funk says some things about Ric Flair, and Sid hilariously shouts at event staff. Speaking of loud noises, here's Daffney (with neon blue hair tonight), getting pushed on a stretcher by Dave and Crowbar. She was a bright spot in the fading days of this promotion. The Sicilian Stretcher Match is next. Italian-style, apparently. Thanks for clarifying, Vito. Johnny the Bull is so upset he can't eat his cheese sandwich, which is pretty low on "Things to start a blood feud about", really. So, no pinfalls or DQ's, the only way to win is to carry your opponents outside the arena on a stretcher. I suggest chloroform. For me, not the competitors. Oh, this is for the tag team titles, if anyone was keeping score. Big ol' brawl from the bell, with Crowbar hitting a splash from inside the ring onto Mr Bull. Dude was under-appreciated in his time. They fight in the aisle, the Marmalukes ram a stretcher into David and Crowbars faces. Seeing David Flair get a pummelling usually makes me happy, and this time is no exception. Brief Daffney-scream break, and we finally get inside the ring. "Beat him up!" shouts Disco, the smartest manager in the world. Daffney leaps in the ring and hits a rana on Johnny, losing her wig in the process. Mild hell breaks out, she maces Disco and plays cheer-screamer.  “Son, your date is here…” The "match" devolves into an ugly brawl, salvaged only by a blinded Disco Inferno bumping into a camera and shouting "What the hell was that?". Dude was pretty funny, I'll have to admit it. Crowbar hits a beautiful Lionsault, which seems wasted in this type of match. Vito powerbombs Crowbar through a table before the 'Lukes murderise David. Johnny does that nice "leap-to-the-top-rope" of his, and actually hits a legdrop this time. Disco is getting the commentary team to describe the action to him, and I admire his commitment to the bit. The 'Lukes tape eventually tape Davy to the stretcher with the world's strongest athletic tape. The ref's roll him out, making the match 25% better.  Some say that he’s still taped to the stretcher to this day. The bell rings randomly, followed by Daffney laughing in the background. Glad she's having fun. Too bad WCW's production team forgot to show us her playing timekeeper, of course. Crowbar goes through a SECOND table and is also taped to a stretcher. The Marmalukes then tape Daffney to a wheelchair and gag her as the match ends at 11:26. Yes, ELEVEN MINUTES, folks. Rating: *muffled screaming* Backstage, Sid whispers threatingally at Gene Okerlund. The Cat heads out to his royalty-free James Brown-esque music, which I assume the WWE Network has dubbed over his MUCH more expensive ACTUAL James Brown music. Either that, or the crowd loves dancing to James Brown MIDI music. Several soul-killing minutes later, The Cat brings out a bad James Brown impersonator. Well, ANOTHER bad James Brown impersonator, The Cat was already in the ring. The Maestro shows up to shout at The Cat. He has a strange cadence that makes him sound like he's a) Got a tongue two sizes too big and b) slightly drunk. He's also unable to complete a full sentence without his brain short-circuiting, making him the only man in the arena LESS coherent than Scott Steiner. The Cat launches a devastating put-down and pauses for the expected audience laughter. Cue three seconds of VERY awkward silence. This segment is dying on its rear end and it's taking FOREVER to do so. FINALLY a bunch of random people dance out and form a horribly uncoordinated guard of honour for the actual James Brown, and like, seven other people. Always good to bring an entourage.  A man who never met a bag of Angel Dust he didn’t love. Jmes and The Cat dance for a while, probably costing Ted Turner twenty grand a minute. James seems to be having a good time, although that could be due to his bloodstream being 90% illict substances. Backstage, Scott Hall sets fire to kayfabe, and we recap Flair vs Funk. Whoo, rear end, whoo, rear end, etc. Then Flair whoos at Geen WHOO OkerlWHOOund at lot. Whoo. The crowd somehow seems to be getting younger and drunker by the minute. Ooh get a FREE WCW collectors Teddy Bear when you order Superbrawl! The bear can cut a better promo than The Maestro, I believe. Dustin Rhodes is with Terry, dressed in red leather pants. It's Sweatydust! The commentary team are taking up the epic lengths of Texas Death Matches of yore, including Dory Funk, Snr's 4-hour marathon. There's 46 minutes left in this show, with two more matches scheduled, so I probably don't need a packed lunch. If you've ever seen Funk and Flair wrestle, you know how the opening few minutes go. Chop, punch, chop, punch, backdrop, beg-off, spinning toe hold, a suplex or two. Flair is selling like he's being tasered, giving up the first fall from a second suplex onto the floor less than five minutes in. (Yes, Mr 60-minute Broadway gets pinned from two suplexes. Whoo.) He's up at five to kick Funk in the Funksack, chairshots to the knees as the match slows down to a crawl. Madden remarks on the crowds “dramatic silence". Dramatic is the same as "bored to tears' ', right? Tony talks up the brutality of what we're seeing, which is odd, as I'm seeing two senior citizens bump into each other like blind tortoises. Figure-four, Funk submits. We're seven minutes in. He's up at 8. Oh, the drama. Someone in the crowd starts doing an INCREDIBLE Daffney scream. Either that, or she's escaped. Flair goes up, even Madden calls what's going to happen. Piledriver on the floor, Flair sells like he's being stabbed with a rusty scalpel as usual. A second piledriver on the exposed concrete... well, almost, as Funk completely misjudges where they are and misses it.... gets another three count on Flair. These legends are getting pinned every three minutes on average. Back in the ring, Funk sets up a table and chews Flair out on the mic. He piledrives him through a table in a slow-motion callback to him breaking Flair's neck in the 80's.  While checking his form on the big screen. It gets 2 as Funk lifts Ric's arm up mid-count. He brings out yet another table, takes a week to set it up, then tries to pin Flair. It gets 2. Interesting strategy. Funk goes up, Flair hits him gently on the back, Terry falls through the table. It gets the pinfall, Terry can't make the 10-count and this is over in 15:40. Rating: I don't want to rate it, I want to sell it as Slow Cinema. Felt like I watched it for a month. Backstage, the Broken Arm Twins, Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart talk loudly at Mean Gene. Michael Buffer is here, so we're close to the end at least. Luger vs. Hogan is part one of the Double Main Event. Security still hasn't got around to confiscating a bunch of pro-WWF signs, by the way. Hogan comes out to a song I think is called "I am a Ripped-Off American". Luger jump-starts the match before Buffer can finish Hulk's intro. Hulk quickly begins dominating with his face moveset of chokes, eyerakes and a blatant chairshot. Mickey Jay is like, "cool, whateva". Eight minutes go by, and I can't find a drat thing worth making jokes about. Hogan starts using his freshly-broken arm as a weapon, ramming Lex's head into it dozens of times. Could you at least say "ouch", you no-selling bastard? Liz hits Hogan with her usual feather-light baseball bat shot, Jimmy Hart steals it off her. Hulk-up, big boot, crowd finally has something to cheer about, even if it's a bald man in yellow underoos. Jimmy Hart pops up, hits Luger right in front of the ref, leg-drop, three-count at 11:08. That's some terrible officiating, my friend. Rating: At least it was shorter than Flair/Funk. Speaking of Ric, he arrives to stomp Hulks 'nads into putty, Sting makes the save. Whoo vs. Whoo? It's Main Main Event time, Sid vs. Jarrett vs. Scott Hall. Buffer-Time! (Speaking of time, we're at 12 minutes left and counting) There's been a mysterious locked locker room subplot going on tonight. The room is now empty. Great, we're telegraphing our run-ins now. The intros eat up some more time, and with nine minutes left, only Jeff and Scott are in the ring. So they ring the bell and let them start the match without Sid. Not sure that's how it works, usually. Buffer's intro is now inaudible, so that was $20K pissed away for no reason.  *random noises* Sid clears house, punching both Harris Brothers until they crotch him on the post. Boo. Boo, I say. They're hitting everything at a billion miles an hour, with a ref bump after three minutes. If you tuned in now you'd swear you were watching a highlight package. A new ref slides in, a bunch of two-counts, a second ref bump, Li'l Naitch becomes ref #3, Sid starts chairshotting the Harris'es like crazy, and holy poo poo, this is the stupidest main event since... the last WCW main event. Jarret hits Charles Robinson with the Stroke to wipe out a THIRD ref, then a fourth. The Evil nWo ref runs in, just as Jarrett takes an Outsider's edge, Evil Ref refuses to count the three. Guitar to the head of Hall, Roddy Piper arrives in a refs shirt JUST in the nick of time. Well, just AFTER, as Evil Ref has to obviously slow down his count to let Piper grab his arm. He's a fighter, not a sprinter, I guess. Powerbomb and Sid retains after 7:50 of overbooked nonsense. Rating: *bagpipes intensify* Well, that was top-tier hot garbage. See you at Thunder, folks.
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Jan 21, 2023 11:31
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Jan 22, 2023 01:26
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I'd put the long long long long long long long long long long long preambles down to two factors: 1. They need the announcers to basically explain what's going on with the storylines because latter days WCW was a bit poo poo at putting together video packages that tell you what's going on. It's what made a lot of the WWF/E PPVs work back in the day. Opening package - boom, here's what's happening, now you're all caught up. JR and King will say "hello," mention where they are, where the viewers are from, and then *bam* opening match to set the pace for the PPV. The matches that get video packages also get the point across in a couple of minutes, basically. "Here's who's in the match, here's what they're beefing over, here's the broad strokes, Cliff's Notes version of the build to this PPV match. Got it? Good." 2. WCW often failed to have a card announced beforehand, so they need the announcers to explain what the matches are. And they had the announcers sit there and yammer on about it for ages at the start, because the promotion was a ship of fools run by idiots.
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Jan 22, 2023 01:39
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Best(?) part about Superbrawl 2000 was WCW didn't even advertise James Brown for the PPV, meaning they spent money on getting James Brown, with no way to get an ROI on that at all
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Jan 22, 2023 01:47
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According to Whatcultre, James got $25,000 for his ten minute appearance. They could have put so many random items on poles with that cash.
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Jan 22, 2023 02:48
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Angry_Ed posted:Best(?) part about Superbrawl 2000 was WCW didn't even advertise James Brown for the PPV, meaning they spent money on getting James Brown, with no way to get an ROI on that at all Truly the greatest promotion of all time
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Jan 22, 2023 02:59
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