WCW Monday Nitro 2/7/00 from Tulsa, Oklahoma!

Wrestling feds never spent more to swirl the drain than WCW did in 2000. For a fed I loved throughout the 90s, I couldn't stand their main product (Nitro, PPV) in 2000 and avoided it almost entirely. I wasn't alone or unique in that stance, as attendance and buyrates were dropping rapidly. In fact, by the time Nitro came to Tulsa, Oklahoma's Convention Center in 2000, they pathetically only drew 6,358 paid. A few months before they drew nearly 7,500 at this same arena for a house show. Can you imagine a hot, popular act drawing less than 6,500 in Tulsa? Clearly an act on the downswing, if you can't put 6,500 butts in the seats in the Tulsa Convention Center.

Evan Karagias vs. Norman Smiley

ER: This was plenty fun for a 90 second match, with 3 Count all trying to interfere and Smiley running Karagias into them, with Moore taking a bump into the ring and Helms getting bumped off the apron. Smiley punched Karagias in the face a couple times, Karagias threw a nice leaping back elbow, and I liked how Karagias kept scrambling away from the wiggle. This would have been good had they given it just 3 minutes. Low end Nitro matches going from a 3 minute runtime to 1-2 minutes was one of the worst parts about this era WCW. There's just not much that can be done in 90 seconds. 

Jesus, poor Danny Hodge is in attendance. 

The nWo comes out and cuts a long and horrifying promo, although Scott Steiner was in typical Scott Steiner form. He goes on the mic hard after Ric Flair, saying that he stole the gimmick of the legend Buddy Rogers ("I know, I know, Buddy Rogers is dead, rest his soul") and says that Rogers is rolling over in his grave and that Flair won't ever have the class of Rogers. And speaking of class, he calls Flair an ass kissin', back stabbin, butt suckin' bastard and also runs down the people of Tulsa. Mark Madden asks Schiavone if he knows what Tulsa spelled backwards is. Good lord. 

Booker vs. The Wall

ER: The Wall was raw as hell at this point, and it's kind of surprising he was put on TV. He didn't really know how to sell punches or bump, but Booker is professional and makes this mostly work. Booker's punches looked really good and he made sure to fly hard into Wall so Wall would know when to fall over. Wall had a great high kick, and that was his only real asset at this point. He kicked like a Rockette, and Booker was smart and clearly had Wall use that kick for a couple of misses (to lead to Booker spin kicks) and then once to land. Wall did fly off the top into a Booker spin kick, which looked cool and also looked silly because again, Wall didn't know how to bump and bend his body. So he just kind of falls over like a mannequin. Booker took a big bump to the floor and really slammed Wall with his rock bottom, then we got some interference because of course. 

Barbarian vs. Tank Abbott

ER: How hard is it to just let these two stiff the hell out of each other for 3 minutes? This doesn't even go 1 minute, which is just cruel. The 1 minute goes as you'd want it to go, with Barbarian throwing big clubbing hands on Tank the second Tank gets on the apron, he and Tank throw blows (literally the easiest pairing to book), Tank backs him in the corner and throws some mean back elbows, and then the moment they start throwing again Barbarian just goes down from the first clean punch. After, Tank blows off Big Al who has come to see him in person!

Oh cool, Oklahoma is out and brings out a plastic surgeon (Dr. Jeter) to talk about all the work Madusa has had done, and the crowd seems into the misogyny at first but it goes on a bit too long for their liking. Madusa comes out and kicks everyone in the balls and also stands on Dr. Jeter's balls. Cooooool. 

I Quit: Terry Funk vs. David Flair

ER: I think David Flair is the worst wrestler to get any significant run in a major wrestling company. This guy didn't even know how to STAND like a human, let alone move like a professional wrestler. This man had no instincts for STANDING! His face was the face of a man who looked like he constantly had to be thinking "stand normal stand normal stand normal" and whenever he had to think about anything else he would naturally revert back to forgetting how to stand. David Flair's movements were so wooden that before his matches he would oil up with Minwax. This match starts with Funk taking 6 straight chairshots to the head, and Flair doesn't know how hard or soft to throw them but also has a hard time because he doesn't know how to bend his arms. If you've seen David Flair stand badly, you've also seen how weird his arms look. They don't quite dangle, but they don't look usable. They look locked in place like old action figure arms, no points of articulation. He's all hunched over with possibly not working arms, and a loose as hell stretched out t-shirt collar. He has dead eyes and rosy cheeks and looks like he's a day away from shooting up a church in the south. 

Terry Funk somewhat works a miracle here, because he takes those chairshots and then starts throwing Flair around ringside, while trash talking Ric Flair on he mic. He tosses David into the guardrail and then pulls back the ringside mats and hits a nice piledriver on the floor, and a hard DDT. "You better come and get your kid, Flair. While he's still alive." Funk piledrives David through a table (Madden makes sure to remind us three different times while this is happening that Funk piledrove Ric through a table at Music City Showdown). Funk goes on a long and awesome old man Terry rant, calling Flair banana nose and then quitting, giving David the technical win. Funk really made this far and away the most entertaining segment on the show. Even though that's a super low bar so far this episode, that shows that 55 year old Funk can still have the best segment on a wrestling show while paired with the worst wrestler of all time. 

Disco Inferno vs. Stevie Ray 

ER: I forgot Ahmed Johnson was here at this point, as Big T. And he's at least 40 pounds heavier than his WWF days. I always thought he looked cool as hell in WWF, and here he's still a different kind of cool. He's wearing a green windbreaker suit, leather fanny pack, chain, and looks like a sinister cookout uncle who is always the first to initiate an altercation. Totally forgot the cool Big T vibe. This was certainly a 2 minute Disco/Stevie Ray match, and none of the match looked as cool as Big T looked at ringside. 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Brian Knobbs

ER: Finlay is the ref for this one, and even though this only goes a couple minutes it's still got a lot of asskicking. Knobbs took a bunch of nasty shots and spills and Bigelow happily continued to hit him with stuff. The match starts with Bigelow throwing a trash can at Knobbs from the ring, then hopping down and bashing him with the lid. Knobbs really takes some hard bumps, working way harder than I remember, really running hard chest first into the guardrail, gets his cast smashed into the ring steps and hit by a crutch, gets run into a ladder and then the ladder falls over RIGHT onto his face. Guy is taking a beating. We get a funny moment where Finlay hands Knobbs a trash can to use without Bigelow seeing (well timed by Finlay) and Knobbs uses it, but then Finlay hits Knobbs with a chair to give Bigelow the win. These guys sure take a lot of headshots.

Billy Kidman vs. The Demon

ER: So The Demon isn't very good, and the crowd chants for Torrie Wilson for the entire match, but things aren't all bad. Kidman takes a nice bump to the floor off a so so Demon clothesline and he makes a Demon DDT look like a credible finisher. Kidman's match winning frankensteiner looked really great.

Sid Vicious vs. Scott Hall

ER: Sid was such a megastar, and as they show Hall and Sid walking backstage before the match, it appears that Sid is chanting his own name. He's doing it the exact same way as the Yes! chant, arms over his head, just chanting his name. When he comes out for his entrance he gets a huge reaction, and is just lighting up the fans with fistbumps on his way to the ring. This guy had charisma and anyone who has badmouthed Sid is clueless. I think Hall has always been a good Sid opponent, as he has size but knows exactly how to bump for Sid, goes down fast for Sid's punches and weaves his head just right to cover for Sid's weird corner punches. He stooges and stumbles for Sid but doesn't come off like a joke at all. The fans go wild when Sid grabs Hall for the chokeslam and drags him all around the ring so everyone can get a glimpse. We get a great ref bump when Hall does a killer fallaway slam that clips Nick Patrick, and really for an era that did constant ref bumps this was one of the well orchestrated ones. Patrick was standing in the right spot, Hall didn't awkwardly change direction with his throw, it looked real good. Then Jarrett runs out and wrecks Sid, and Hall hits an awesome Razor's Edge on Sid, but then Jarrett turns on Hall for trying to win (what was Hall expected to do in his title match? I don't understand any of this) and the nWo disbands.


This was not a good episode of wrestling television, but it's kind of amazing how enthusiastic the whole crowd remained the entire time. It's cool that a crowd of under 7,000 could maintain that kind of enthusiasm for something that is clearly falling apart right in front of them. They're watching this promotion that looked damn near unstoppable just three years prior, and now they're looking at this offensive, lumbering, wounded, leaking monstrosity. And you'd think it would leave the arena awkwardly quiet in the wrong spots and leave a bunch of embarrassing photos which show how empty large sections were, but we don't get any of that. We get to witness a crowd of about 6,500 Oklahomans actually having a good time, regardless of the sad presentation they were witnessing. I'm glad the people of Oklahoma got that, at least. 

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 3/11/00, Part 1

1. Harris Brothers vs. Disorderly Conduct

Pretty fun squash as Mean Mike and Tough Tom are game enough to bump around for these two. The teams pair off and one combo rolls to the floor and the other stays in the ring. I can tell that Mean Mike is on the floor and Tough Tom is in the ring, but I won't be able to tell the Harris Bros. apart. Whichever one is in the ring actually looks pretty decent, throwing a cool uppercut and tossing Tom around nicely. The H Bomb works real well as a finisher, and both members of DO have to take it (with both getting great height). This was a fun enough squash, but is there such thing as an actual good Harris Bros. match? There are 12+ years of these guys on tape, certainly there has to be something good?

2. Norman Smiley vs. Scotty Zappa

Wow, Scotty Zappa. I saw Dweezil's Zappa Plays Zappa show a few years back and it was really awesome. Not sure what Ahmet or Moon Unit are up to these days. I feel bad for Scotty as he got little of the family talent, didn't get to marry Lisa Loeb or Selma Blair, clearly rebelled against his father by not even attempting a career in music. I imagine if he ever worked ECW that Joey Styles gave his finisher some name like "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" or "Chunga's Revenge". This was a weird period for Smiley as he's still billed as "Screamin" Norman Smiley, except he doesn't scream anymore. And he still dresses like he's the hardcore legend, with football pants and minor league hockey jersey, but he wrestles like his weird hybrid World of Sport/UWFi self. Match is not helped much by Zappa, who stinks. Norman still does his awesome scoop and twist bodyslam and has some slick leg kicks. It always stuns me how over the Big Wiggle was. People just jump out of their seats screaming whenever he does it.



3. 3 Count vs. El Dandy, Silver King and Jeremy Lopez

Apparently 3 Count are the collective hardcore champs here but this was probably taped a few months before the title change and there are no hardcore elements (which enrages Scott Hudson!). The match starts out the best way it could possibly start, with Dandy punching Karagias before the bell, then Helms and Moore each running into Dandy punches of their own. 12 stars. This match really is a WCW cruiserweight classic. Outside of one botch from King/Moore (and even that was doing a really ambitious electric chair type roll-up spot) this was 6 minutes of constant spots and cool showcases from everybody. Moore and Helms were such bump freaks at this point (though I haven't watched much pre-WWE Helms in awhile and seeing the size difference between him here and him in WWE was quite jarring) and both guys flew all over for King and Dandy. Los Fabulosos had cool double team offense (loved Silver King hip tossing Dandy into a senton) and this was just exactly what you hoped for when you saw this on paper. Jeremy Lopez was quite the unheralded early 00s junior as random Villano and Fabulosos partner.

4. Barry Horowitz vs. Allan Funk

Cool little 6 minute match that's a really good reference point if you want to throw somebody towards some high end Horowitz. Funk was one of my favorite Power Plant guys but here he had a lot of trouble stringing together moves and transitioning from offense to defense. Horowitz seems to really thrive in these types of matches, though, and he comes off as almost a Fit Finlay "let's let him train the Divas/let's put him with Bobby Lashley" type guy making the young and inexperience looked good by one parts selling big for them and one parts taking advantage of them. Horowitz does cool Finlay stuff he doesn't normally do, like stomp fingers, wrench ears on side headlocks, headbutts, elbow to the throat on the apron, even breaking out a nasty palm strike to Funk's right eye. Jesus (Moses?), Barry! This honestly may have been the best Horowitz has ever looked in a match, and I'm a pretty big Barry fan. Barry controlled for almost 6 straight minutes and Funk won by reversing a cradle and holding the trunks. This match was really awesome. It might have been better with more of a competitive pace, but an extended Barry squash with tiny Funk comebacks peppered in worked great for me.

5. Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Frankie Lancaster

I can't believe it took me so long to realize that '99/'00 Frankie Lancaster was just Bob Holly. I bet I could convince somebody that was true. These discs are burned from some pretty deep generation VHS tapes, so they're kinda fuzzy with muffled sound. I'm trying to think of a more selfish worker than Duggan during the syndicated years and the only guy I can think of is Sullivan. Konnan definitely has to get his moves in, but occasionally sells for other guys in between. Sullivan rarely lets other guys have offense, but Duggan is almost worse because he usually lets guys get a couple moves in and never even acts like anything touched him. It makes guys look fucking ridiculous. Lancaster threw a few shockingly nice punches and Duggan doesn't move his head one inch to even give off the impression somebody is doing offense to him. I want a Duggan vs. Sullivan match that is just a 4 minute test of strength with neither gaining an advantage, and then each just choosing to get counted out so nobody has to show any ass.

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 6/13/98

1. Saturn vs. Damien

Quick match but really fun. Damien gets exactly one move (running up the turnbuckles into a crossbody) but Saturn is a total beast here, never letting up and working pretty stiff. Saturn just plants Damien with the DVD and also throws out a crazy half nelson duplex that has Scott Hudson going bonkers. Would have liked some back and forth but they were working "Saturn is mad and taking it out on some poor sucker" and it worked.

2. Evan Kourageous vs. Dean Malenko

Oh my lord Evan was so lost in the ring. Why the hell was he even put on TV so damn soon? Evan stumbles pretty early and from there it's mostly Dean stiffing him all over the ring and on the mat, so this is awesome. Dean's mat stuff looked really great, much closer to his mid 90s internet rep than you remember. It probably helps that Evan is basically a sack of potatoes that Dean just did shoot mat transitions with. Really looked like Dean had to do every move legit because if he let up a little bit, Karagias would immediately screw it up and fall the wrong way. So you get cool stuff like leg scissor takedowns where you can tell Dean is really tripping him to the mat. Karagias eventually gets his comeback run and immediately blows it, reversing an Irish Whip and then forgetting to do anything when Dean runs back at him...so Karagias just runs to the opposite ropes while Dean is still running...and eventually stops and squares off. And then Dean just says fuck it and kicks him and clotheslines his throat. Watching Malenko put the Texas Cloverleaf on Karagias was a thing of hilarity and beauty. Karagias acted like he had never seen this move applied in his life and had no idea what to do, so it ended up looking more like me struggling to get my cat in his cat carrier to go to the vet. Karagias keeps rolling the wrong way so Dean finally snaps, forces it on him and then bends the poor guy almost in half as Evan noticeably yelps and starts tugging at Dean's leg to get him to stop.

3. Booker T vs. Barry Horowitz

90s Booker has aged so badly, he really needs a quality opponent to drag him through stuff. Horowitz is a good guy to do that as he leans way in to Booker's elbows and silly side kicks and snaps hard to the mat for them. They had some nice go behind sequences to start with Horowitz getting a cool leg pick but Booker gaining leverage with a nice back elbow. Horowitz got into place for all of Booker's big moves, although Booker was rushing through everything way too fast and getting into position super early. Post match Fit motherfucking Finlay comes out in khakis and a black tank top and boots Booker hard in the side of the knee, then locks on a sick half crab. Weird to think they'd also feud in WWE almost 10 years later.

4. Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Chris Jericho

Well this was a little surprising, as Jericho wins clean in less than 2 minutes and Chavo gets zero offense in. His ribs were taped up, and Jericho went after the ribs, but you'd expect some sort of comeback or something. I think I remember a period where Chavo feuded with Eddie and Chavo went crazy and would not use offense during matches, or something. But it's odd for a guy to get completely squashed right before a PPV where he's in a featured match.

5. Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera

Lodi is holding an awesome sign that says "Kidman vs. Juvi Best of 467 Series". These matches are basically as strong as the amount of blown spots contained within, and everything hits in this match so it's a win. It's 7 minutes of a bunch of moves that hit, with cool slams and big missed moves off the top. When Juvy is on he is my favorite non-Rey cruiserweight to watch. He bumps huge and moves so damn fast. Here he just whips all around Kidman and all his moves have some great extra oomph to them. He really makes his plancha to the floor look like full contact. Kidman is good here, too, doing something different than his usual bump machine specialty. Here he cuts off a lot of Juice comebacks and does little things like missed clotheslines really well. Juvy does his cool missed 450 spot where he lands on his feet, and then plants Kidman with the Juvy Driver for the clean win. He was facing Reis at the PPV, ya know. Really awesome 90s WCW cruiser match, one of the reasons I was so into this style when I was an innocent teen.

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 3/27/99 & 4/3/99

3/27/99

Holy lord, I have no idea where this episode was sourced from, what local feed from whatever state in America this was originally taped from, but I love local TV. And whomever originally recorded this episode of Worldwide in whatever state they live in, have a local news anchor named......STORM FIELD!!! Storm Motherfucking Field starts off this episode of Worldwide by pimping the March of Dimes, and it's really awesome that things are working out so well for him after leaving Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. I mean holy shit, Storm Field.

1. Barry Horowitz vs. Johnny Swinger

Damn Horowitz was a monster here! He comes out wearing his rad gold suspenders, and from there it is just a beatdown on poor Swinger. Swinger finally draws the card of someone other than Finlay or Regal, finally gonna get a chance to not get beaten within an inch of his life...and that's when Horowitz works stiffer than I have ever seen him work before. Just punching and chopping and elbowing and throwing dropkicks like Swinger was a trainee in Gaea Girls. I've always enjoyed Barry, but I need more of THIS Barry.

2. La Parka vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Yeah buddy! Always fun getting to watch these two do their thing. Crazy to think that 13 years later Parka is probably the most relevant guy out of these sets. I mean, he's one of the only guys who is still active, but he's also a major star. Not sure who would have predicted that in 1999. Here we get some fun dives, some dancing, and some big bumps. Who can hate?

4/3/99

You know this is going to be a fucking awesome episode because it starts out with a crowd pan and there is a woman in her 20s holding up a sign that says "Take me Back Stage". I guarantee you that sign and the ensuing events that assuredly happened were not even in the top 10 biggest mistakes that woman has made in her life.

1. Kendall Windham vs. Bobby Duncam Jr.

YESSS! Syndicated dream match for me right here. This had to have been right around when they started the West Texas Rednecks. I thought they had already started when I was in college, but I clearly must be wrong as there is no mention of them here. I wish this could have gotten 12 minutes, but it only goes about 3-4. Still, they cram a bunch in with both guys throwing bombs and the action going all over the ring, ending in a count out. I wish this match up was on every episode.

2. Kidman vs. Evan Karagias

And then we end the evening on this. Kidman matches are really fun when he's against somebody with great offense, because Kidman can bump like a complete lunatic. I'll level with you, Evan Karagias does not have great offense. Or good offense. Or...offense. So, this stank. Karagias was super awkward and not great at taking offense, and if you weren't great at taking offense then you may die against Kidman. Karagias does manage to powerbomb Kidman. It turns out the trick is to use a gutwrench. Evan cracked the code! Then he tried a regular powerbomb, Kidman reversed, and it somehow ended with Karagias flying face first into Kidman's knees. Kidman goes up for the shooting star and we all take bets on where Kidman will end up. My guess was "Kidman's chest/chin landing on Kargias' knees". Other guesses included "Kidman's knees on Karagias' chest". The winning answer was "Kidman's chest on Karagias' groin."

Read more!